Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangātira  

Erena completed a master’s degree in Māori visual arts with First Class Honours through Massey University, Palmerston North in 2009. Erena is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Māori Visual Art at Toioho ki Apiti, Massey University based in Palmerston North.

She is apart of the award winning Mataaho Collective, who have been producing large scale collaborative works since 2012.  

Erena Arapere believes the photographic image is the most important innovation in history for memorialising a loved one. In her view, no invention captures the essence of a person with such precision or manifests their memory in a physical object as effectively as photography. Photographs speak across time and place, creating an emotional bond between subject and viewer. 

Her artistic practice is grounded in a Māori commemorative paradigm. She aims to address the historical relationship between Māori and photography, as well as the ways Māori responded to and ultimately appropriated the display of ancestral portraiture as a critical ceremonial practice. 

Taking into account both historical and contemporary issues related to Māori photography, her work involves a physical engagement with the notion of mauri, the gaze, gender representation, and commemorative strategies.