Kirsten Lyttle
(b. 1972, Sydney. Lives and works in Melbourne)

Dr Kirsten Lyttle is a proud Māori wāhine academic, artist and creative practice-led researcher (Iwi/tribe: Waikato, Waka/Canoe: Tainui, Hapū/Subtribe: Ngāti Tahinga). Her research and arts practice privileges Indigenous-centred methodologies and knowledge systems, Indigenous customary art practices (in particular, Māori weaving) and their application to technologies such as photography and video.

Taking the form of a cloak constructed from woven digital photographs of feathers, Kahu Whakaahua, 2022–23, is a new commission for Melbourne Now that builds on Lyttle’s 2018–19 work Gundulu/Emu Kākahu huruhuru and the artist’s creative research as part of her PhD. In this series, Lyttle uses the physical surface of the photograph as a site for making customary Māori woven artworks. As she explains:

‘I started my research project with the following questions: Are expatriate Māori weavers bound to the same cultural materiality constraints concerning preservation of culture when living on another land? Can new technologies, such as digital imaging, be combined with customary art techniques without damage or loss to indigenous customary practices?’

Where Lyttle’s previous photographic cloaks have been installed flat against the wall, this new, larger-scale work is designed as a shoulder-to-floor-length cloak, at the exact scale of a traditional customary garment. In this way, Lyttle subverts what she calls the ‘Pākehā tool’ of the camera, repurposing and reworking the medium into three-dimensional, tactile and culturally significant outcomes.

Trained as a photographer (Fine Art) at RMIT University, she completed a Fine Art Degree with Distinction in 2008. In 2013, she was awarded a Master of Fine Art (RMIT University), and in 2020 was awarded her Doctorate degree from Deakin University. She has over ten years of teaching experience and has lectured and taught photography, art history and visual art at a range of universities, including Master of Photography – RMIT University; Critical Art and Theory – Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne; Deakin University; and Photography Studies College. She is currently the inaugural Postdoctoral Research Fellow for Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab, Monash Art Design and Architecture Faculty, Monash University.

Lyttle has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. Recent highlights include Immigration Museum / Museums Victoria (2022 and 2018/2019); Gertrude Street Projection Festival (2021); Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2019); Counihan Gallery, Brunswick (2019); Horsham Regional Art Gallery (2019); Monash Gallery of Art (2018 and 2016); Gertrude Contemporary Preston (2018); and Centre for Contemporary Photography (2018).