Publication_Information
Artist Presentation: Arielle Walker
October 04, 2025 - October 04, 2025
As part of A Topographical Summit, visiting artist Arielle Walker will give a public presentation on her current practice at the Rounding space in the Kenderdine Art Gallery. Image Credit: rongoā (mending), Arielle Walker, NZ, 2020 - ongoing, foraged plant dyes on handed-down silk, cotton muslin, and linen; Grandmama’s threads, 1820 x 4700mm (detail). Photo courtesy of Emily Parr.
About this Program
Arielle Walker (Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Ngāpuhi, Pākehā) is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based contemporary artist, writer, and maker. Her practice seeks pathways towards reciprocal belonging through the intersections and connections between land, language, and craft, weaving together tactile storytelling and ancestral narratives. Contexts that surround this include the intrinsic ties of language and land, migration across the swell and pull of the ocean, the interconnectedness of islands, pūrākau, textile traditions passed down through generations of tūpuna wāhine, tension, balance, and weight as material metaphors, roots and botanical belongings.
In 2024, she completed a PhD — Mending the Kupenga: Towards a Language of Reciprocity Between Ancestral Textile & Storytelling Practices — at AUT University, where she is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with RAU Textiles Research, Te Kura Toi a Hoahoa School of Art and Design.
