_{Image: Nukunuku Whakairo — Carving with the Camera (installation view) 2025. Zena Elliott and Tia Barrett. Single-channel video. 4 minutes 28 seconds.  Courtesy of the artists}

Zena Elliott explores the diversity of pre-colonial kaiwhakairo practices and how these discourses might empower contemporary takatāpui and wāhine kaiwhao (non-binary et al. woman carvers) to redefine gender roles within contemporary whakairo ecosystems.

Elliott’s practice embraces the complexity and fluidity of gender, identity, and Indigenous relational ecosystems, asserting that all things are interconnected within the multi-layered dimensional worlds of Māori. By expressing multiple gender identity perspectives, both human and non-human, Elliott articulates the unfixed nature of gender through her concept of Indigi-[ia] (It/they/them/she/him).