Hana Pera Aoake


Hana Pera Aoake is a New Zealand artist, poet and writer.
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Life and career

Hana Pera Aoake was born and raised in Matamata in the North Island of New Zealand. She is Māori of Ngaati Mahuta, Ngaati Hinerangi, Waikato/Tainui, Waitaha, and Ngaati Waewae ki Kai Tahu Poutini descent.
Aoake is a co-founder of the Dunedin Artist-run space Fresh and Fruity which began in 2014. A museum exhibition of their work at was held at Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art in 2017. At the time of this exhibition Fresh and Fruity consisted of Aoake and Mya Morrison-Middleton. The artists described the collective as "a sexy new look designed to slowly smash the neocolonial heteropatriarchy one sarcastic hashtag at a time #cuterthanu"
A Bathful of Kawakawa and Hot Water, Aoake's first collection of poetry, was published by Compound Press in 2020. Kawakawa is endemic to New Zealand, and holds significance in Māori culture. Poet Paula Green wrote in a review of A Bathful of Kawakawa in 2020 that the book was "an incisive and vital probe, drawing on reading, ideas, history, the present and the future, challenging Western discourse, asking questions, musing on what 'constitutes a common', on the co-option of Maaori concepts by Paakeha, on the inseparability of body and mauri, on the damaged world, on the power of myth."
In 2024, Aoake was awarded a residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. The artist wrote that she "hopes to share and learn more about how art spaces can work with different communities to facilitate different conversations and exchanges."

Poetry Collections

A Bathful of Kawakawa and Hot Water: Selected Writings
  • Some Helpful Models of Grief
  • ''BLAME IT ON THE RAIN''

Key exhibitions

Folded Memory, Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, 2023Matarau, City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, Wellington, 2022Te Tamaiti, Te Ao, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland, 2022The Tomorrow People, Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, 2017Making Space: Fresh and Fruity, Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, 2017

Work in Public Art Collections