Te Rongo Kirkwood

Te Rongo Kirkwood (Aotearoa New Zealand) is an artist working across glass, sculpture, installation and moving image.

Grounded in Māori cosmology and whakapapa (genealogy and interconnection), her practice explores relationships between people, place, memory and transformation. Working with light, glass and moving image, she creates works that consider how knowledge, stories and experiences are carried across generations.

Glass has been a central material throughout her practice. Drawn to its ability to hold and transmit light, she is interested in using it alongside installation and performance to investigate ideas of presence, perception and connection to landscape. Her work often brings together personal experience, ancestral narratives and contemporary forms to create spaces for reflection and encounter.

During her residency at S12, Kirkwood will begin research for a new body of work exploring vessel, void, light and landscape through glass.

She will use the residency to experiment with materials, scale and form, investigating how glass can function as both a container and a lens through which relationships between people, place and memory are experienced.

The residency is supported by the Alexander tutsek-stiftung.

Images: Artist working -Brad Patrick, Meremere Series – Jen Raoult.