These practices all demonstrate a deep connection with, and curiosity about, the materials they work with. Their investigations stem from the cultural and political resonances of materials and processes of making, shaping, and transforming. Each maker approaches this distinctly, talking to the rich complexity of cultural connections they bring to their work. Their interrogation of materials are intense and ongoing, acutely aware of the histories and legacies of the materials and making processes they employ. This includes the pre-body adornment/craft-object life of the stone, shells, seeds, textiles, plant matter e.g. muka/flax fibre, bone, kelp, concrete, found materials, and metals they are using.

These materials carry associations and cultural knowledge; and each maker explores how they attend to these, and how their labours of transformation offer an opportunity to consider historical associations and the object’s potential. They demonstrate advanced technical skills, deriving from historical precedent, yet they do not seek to replicate things that have come before, rather they enquire, how can this object, invite new engagements of substance? These enquiries are grounded through being based in Aotearoa NZ and Australia in the Pacific, spanning indigenous knowledge systems through to interrogation of settler-colonialism, and Western understandings of feminism.