Ming Ranginui announced as the LAI and Artspace Aotearoa residency recipient

We are pleased to announce Ming Ranginui will undertake the La Trobe Art Institute and Artspace Aotearoa residency, traveling to Djaara/Bendigo in Regional Victoria, Australia for three weeks this October.

Drawing purpose from the Djaara season of harvest and growth, and the New Commissions exhibition season at Artspace Aotearoa, the residency offers the opportunity for relationship building and exchange for an emerging Aotearoa artist.

During Ming’s residency, she is interested in exploring the relationship between Indigenous sovereignty and capitalism, drawing on the specific context of Dja Dja Wurrung Country. She hopes to deepen her understanding of the tensions between Indigenous self-determination and systems that can work against it, continuing her exploration of the connections between Aotearoa and Australia.

Ming Ranginui of Te Ati Haunui-a-Pāpārangi and is a Māori artist from Whanganui. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts with first-class honours at Massey University, Wellington, in 2020, and furthered her studies in 2022 at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, specialising in Raranga. Ming is best known for sculptural works incorporating whatu/tāniko and satin smocking. She bends customary fibres and contemporary fabrics to her will, using her distinctive visual and material sensibility to reimagine everyday entities. Her artwork is driven by a desire to address the issues she has faced in her own life, focusing on the themes of Tino Rangatiratanga, spirituality, and survival. The themes and purakau her works tell not only speak to her personal experience but also reach out to the collective experience of Indigenous people struggling with the generational impact of colonisation.