LOUIE ZALK-NEALE

Zalk-Neale’s primary material is taura tī kōuka—rope made from the leaves of the tī kōuka, or New Zealand cabbage tree—often combined with plastics and other waste to form intricate adornments and aquatic forms animated by the artist’s own body. Zalk-Neale is best known for projects such as Mana Tipua Tuku Iho, Ngā Manuhiri Taura (The Visiting Ropes), and Transcestor, which bind queer, ancestral, and ecological narratives together in performance.

Early Life and Career

Based in Ōtaki, a town on the Kāpiti Coast of New Zealand’s lower North Island, Zalk-Neale grounds their practice in a close, everyday relationship with tī kōuka and with environments connected to the moana, the ocean. Training in contemporary art contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand, they emerged in the late 2010s through performance and body-based work, initially in artist-run and experimental spaces such as MEANWHILE and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space in Wellington (Te Whanganui-a-Tara), and Blue Oyster Art Project Space in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Over time, their work has expanded from contained performance events toward site-responsive ceremonial actions in landscapes and galleries, often documented in moving image and photography. Recognition includes the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Springboard Award (2024), supporting the development of their national profile through funding and mentorship.

Works, Methods and Themes

Zalk-Neale’s practice is anchored in mahi tī kōuka—literally “cabbage tree work”, referring to the physical act of twisting and plaiting cabbage tree fibre into treasured objects, and also to the intangible guidance transmitted from the plant during such work. Zalke Neale’s forms attach to the body or extend into space, resembling fins, spines, fishing lines, umbilical cords, and strands of hair, and are frequently made with recycled plastics, highlighting material journeys between home, land, and ocean.

In works such as Mana Tipua Tuku Iho and Ngā Manuhiri Taura, including performances for Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre’s “Public Relations” series in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, the artist activates these taura outdoors and on beaches, emphasising whakapapa—genealogical and relational links—between the human body, tī kōuka, and the moana. The projects draw on Dr Elizabeth Kerekere’s concept of Mana Tipua, which speaks to the shapeshifting power and fluid gender of taniwha and other spiritual beings as a grounding for takatāpui and trans experience in the present.

A core theme is the connection between gender fluidity, takatāpui identity, and Māori cosmologies of shapeshifting and transformation, positioning queerness as a sign of healthy natural and cultural systems rather than an exception. Alongside performance, works such as the photograph Maikukuroaroa – I sharpen my femininity (2024, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, in Ōtautahi Christchurch) show how Zalk-Neale uses self-adornment to articulate femininity, self-fashioning, and transformation within institutional collections. Across media, the body becomes a site of ritual and learning, where audiences are often invited into participatory or wānanga-like situations—wānanga being Māori spaces of collective learning and knowledge exchange.

Exhibitions, Collections and Recognition

Zalk-Neale has presented projects with Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Artspace Aotearoa in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Te Tuhi’s soft shell programme, Māoriland in Ōtaki, Objectspace in Auckland, Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan, and Performance Art Week Aotearoa in Wellington, among others.

Five photographs from Zalk-Neale’s ‘Mana Tipu Tūku Iho’ series, including Maikukuroaroa – I sharpen my femininity (2024), are held in the collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Further recognition includes the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Springboard Award (2024) and selection as the inaugural Aotearoa artist for the McCahon House × Space for Contemporary Art Exchange residency in Seoul, South Korea, extending their practice into an international residency context.

Louie Zalk-Neale FAQs

Ocula | 2026