Auckland Pride Festival 2026

Go-Go Boys - Arapeta Hākura

Content notice / Whakatūpato Adult themes and content Go-Go Boys contains adult themes including nudity and body-focused artworks exploring drag and trans politics. This exhibition is recommended for viewers aged 16+.

 About the Artist

‘Go-Go Boys’ is an exhibition of paintings by Arapeta is an Irāwhiti (Transgender Māori) artist, curator, and academic based in, Tāmaki Makaurau, and Waihi Beach in Aotearoa, New Zealand. They are of Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu, Te Patu Koraha, Tainui, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Marutūāhu, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngai Tohianga, Ngāti Whakamarurangi, Ngāti Tuirirangi, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Te Wehi, Ngāti Whangaparāoa, Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Motemote, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Porou, Scottish, and Croatian descent.

Arapeta is a weaver of stories with particular focus on Irāwhiti transgender Māori lived experiences, using the poetics of adornment, objects, performance, sound art, photography, and cinema. Drawing upon various traditional and contemporary art forms passed down through their whakapapa, their practice challenges binaries of western and precolonial Māori gendered making as well as binaries of material practices.

Through their PhD scholarship ‘Whare Wawata: Dream Walking through takatāpui storytelling and sovereignty in transdisciplinary contemporary art,’ they ground their practice in pioneering indigenous transgender academia and theory. Arapeta has exhibited across Aotearoa and internationally, often challenging the western imperialism of contemporary art spaces.

Through their methodology of Whare Wawata— prophetic dreaming in Te Ao Māori—they actively decolonize and dream indigenous trans storytelling in space. Their exhibitions are site and kaupapa specific, focusing on site and community as primary progenitors for exhibition making. Exhibitions such as Home Sweet Home (2022, RM Gallery, Karangahape Road), Bunnies Blue Moon (2024, Govett Brewster Gallery), and Cowboy Motel (2025, Dowse Art Museum) become sites of play, invigoration, and liberation of identity, politics, and joy.

Alongside contemporary materialities, Arapeta specializes in Māori practices including Pao Kōwhatu (customary stone adze making), Whatu kākāhu (customary garment weaving), Tapa Māori (bark cloth practices), and Uku Whenu (customary clay making). They uphold these material practices while challenging their potentiality through contemporary materials, thought, and processes.

Their research and role as a knowledge holder of Māori material art extends nationally and internationally through the academic Fine Arts and Toi Māori fields, as well as in the musicological space, often engaging with large museum institutions such as the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Arapeta is currently working on multiple iwi and hapū focused projects extending these various fields.

Key projects include the development of Takarunga recreational space inDevonport as a mana whenua resident artist, and recent exhibitions Rehutai (2024) and Ringa Whetū (2025) at Te Uru Waitakere Gallery and Star Booty at RM Gallery at Tāmaki Makaurau in collaboration with their weaving collective Tutu Fingers. Hākura lectures at the University of Auckland, teaching Ngā Toi Taketake: Fibre and Textiles (engaging with customary textile processes from Te Whare Tapora), Ngā Toi Taketake: Stone and Sculpture (engaging with customary stone carving processes), and Moving Image, Documentation and Action (engaging in time-based and performance art).

Outside of the academic field, Hākura is a kaiako engaging with iwi and hapū restorative practices, and is nationally recognized as both a curator and artist in Aotearoa.