CO-CREATING
LIVING ARCHIVES
AT THE INTERSECTION OF KINSHIP,
SPIRITUALITY, MENTAL WELLBEING
& TIKANGA MĀORI
KO WAI A IRIHIPETI?
He uri au noo Ngaati Rangi. Ko Irihipeti Waretini taku ingoa.
A people and practice weaver of multi-dimensional stories, Irihipeti Waretini is a multi-disciplinary artist, cultural community development practitioner, arts producer and well-being leader. Her work sits at the intersection of Indigenous therapies, crafting, creativity and intergenerational learning.
Quantum leaping through Māori astrology, radical feminism, ancestral reconnection and ecological stewardship, her practice centres mourning practices and ritual, each project shaped by moon cycles, the traditional lands and relational creative methods that honour personal and collective histories.
Winner of the 2025 Time Out Best Exhibition Award, her recent and forthcoming exhibitions include Māreikura: Ka rere te rongoā (Immigration Museum, 2025), Hononga (Blakdot Gallery, 2025), Kia aro Kia āro (Wyndham City Council, 2025), and a solo exhibition at Queen Victoria Women's Centre in 2027. A producer and curator as much as an artist, her 2023 roles spanned Creative Director of a sold-out season for Melbourne Fringe Festival with Maribyrnong City Council, CultureLAB Resident at Arts House, Diasporas Artist and Lead Producer with Multicultural Arts Victoria, and Co-Curator at the Geoffrey Kaye Museum of Anaesthetic History, shortlisted for a MAGNA by the Australian Museums and Galleries Association. She was a finalist in the SBS Emerging Writers Anthology Between Two Worlds (Hardie Grant, 2022) and took out the People's Choice Award at Capturing Culture (2022). A community cultural development practitioner of nearly two decades, she is the founder of The Ako Room (2026) and works across Naarm (Melbourne) and Aotearoa, healing intergenerational trauma alongside Indigenous communities, including Mindful Mob.
Past Projects
Image of Ipu Ti by Shuttermain Photography featuring Irihipeti Waretini & Fipe Preuss
HONONGA
BLAK DOT GALLERY, 2025
HONONGA is an interweaving of bloodlines across oceans; seeds dispersed by Tāwhirimātea, of kinship across timelines; A crafting of cosmologies through cycles of life and death. Restoring the balance within our stories of place and belonging. An acknowledgment to Country, HONONGA affirms community anchoring under a shared canopy of presence, culture and care.No hea koe? Ahakoa he aha te rākau, me ngākau whakaute te whenua.
(Where are you from? No matter the tree, to cherish the land)
MĀREIKURA:
Kā rere te rongoā
IMMIGRATION MUSEUM 2025
Māreikura: Ka rere te rongoā (the medicine flows) is a contemporary display of traditional Maori cultural practices which shape a narrative centring the celestial sacred feminine in a dramatic show of identity, healing and kinship.
Image credit: Tiff Garvie
Resonance
MELBOURNE MUSEUM, 2023
Gathering around shared rhythm, values, and purpose, 6 Narrm-based interdisciplinary and intergenerational artists of the diaspora, weave together their creative and cultural practices for the crafting of story and ceremony. Presented by Multicultural Arts Victoria and Melbourne Museum.
Main image of Irihipeti, inset of Fallon Te Paa (L) Kaycee Merito (R) Tim Te Hau (BG) Image credit: Gianna Rizzo
TE PŌ
MELBOURNE FRINGE, 2023
An ensemble of highly skilled warriors navigate the formidable realms of unintentional greatness. Created and directed by Irihipeti Waretini. Written and Performed by Te Ara Hononga. 5 sold out shows presented by Fringe Melbourne 2023 & Maribyrnong City Arts & Culture.
Main image of Taonga Wiata. Inset of Mahana Neho by Tom Noble.
Film credit Project nRt & Irihipeti Waretini
Carving Gang
Sharing culture and traditional cultural practises in contemporary and creative settings.
Main image of Saltwater kin, works presented at Blak Dot Gallery. Inset Djirri Djirri dancers Welcome to Country. Images credit Gianna Rizzo. Film credit Irihipeti Waretini.
Ipu Tī
Ipu Ti is a weaving of contemporary and classical performance art with traditional Pacific/Maaori storytelling co-created by Fipe Preuss & Irihipeti Waretini. Tikanga, traditions and rituals for Pacific peoples are centred around people, land, our environment and our connection to food. Through ritual, the elements and engagement with our communities, we develop, shape and share our conversations through various modalities including classical and acoustic guitar, song, chant, language, traditional instruments, drumming, ukulele, movement and fire.
image credit of Fipe Preuss by Irihipeti Waretini
Djeembana Whakaora
A co-collaboration between First Nations and Māori, Pasifika Diaspora living on sacred Aboriginal Land. An online exhibition with Geoffrey Kaye Museum that recognises and values traditional modes of care and knowledge transmission of health and healing.
Rangituhia Marae (L) Brent Watkins (R).
Image credits Irihipeti Waretini