On Wednesday, 11 June 2025, the jewellery artist Neke Moa will give a lecture at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle as part of the SCHMUCK HALLE Lecture Series.

Neke Moa is an internationally renowned emerging Māori (indigenous Aotearoa, New Zealand) artist who believes in ‘finding your way through making’. Neke Moa's artistic practice is an evolving and provocative response to her environment and culture as a Māori. The artist seeks to promote Hauora (wellbeing) by deepening connections between people, knowledge keepers and gods. Moa carves, shapes and creates wearables and objects using mainly shells, stone, bone and wood – the materials of the taiao (environment). These materials carry embedded stories, echoes of the past and potential for the future, often culturally charged and most often sourced from Moa’s homeland, Aotearoa. Her work explores our connections within the spaces of the seen and unseen – the realms where wairua (spirituality) resides and creativity originates. By paying close attention to both customary and contemporary processes, she seeks to make mātauranga (indigenous knowledge) and pūrākau (stories) newly accessible. This talk will take the audience on a journey through Moa's jewellery and art practice, intertwining indigenous storytelling and materiality across time and space.

This event will be held in English.

Bio

Nike Moa has exhibited throughout the Moana Oceania region and beyond. She was awarded the prestigious Herbert Hofmann Prize at Munich Jewellery Week in 2023 and was an artist-in-residence at McCahon House. Moa's work is held in the collections of major institutions including the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Dowse Art Museum and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She is based at Ōtaki Beach where many of her rauemi (materials) are collected. Moa taught shell craft in Fiji and Tonga from 2016 until 2020 and continues to teach and learn as part of her art practice.