My name is noa hāmana (b. 1998), I am an interdisciplinary Ngāpuhi visual artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. My art explores themes of migration, colonialism, and Māoridom. 

Research is the foundation of my practice. I draw upon ethnographies and anthropological literature to imagine the past and interrogate Western ontology– particularly colonialism and its legacy of violence. Moments of early contact between Europeans and Māori led to experiences and contingent events which transformed and eroded cultural structures. With this, I use mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) to read and convey the past with new meaning, as well as examine and critique the meanings which affect the contemporary Indigenous experience.

Alongside this, my art hotwires European art and literature, using it to restore the loss and deprivation that it was able to create. My aim isn’t to recapture the spirit of the imperialist image, but to show what is missing from it. It is an act of placing a mirror to the past where its cracks and fractures become visible. By doing this, fragments of the past are revealed to be fragments of a much greater language where the shattering is celebrated and the narrative changed.

E whai mahi hira ana i te moana waipū.
Great works are done in deep waters