Jeremy Leatinu'u

The Auckland-based performance, video and installation artist and educator, who is of Ngāti Maniapoto and Samoan descent, has a rich body of work behind him. It has exhibited widely in Aotearoa, as well as being featured internationally in the Berlin International Film Festival and Montréal First Peoples Festival. 

“Throughout my artistic career, there have been different phases of art making,” he says. 

The first phase of his career blossomed at Elam School of Fine Arts at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. There, Leatinu’u said he learned a lot about where he wanted to take his work. 

“It provided the opportunity for me to become more self-directed, more self-determined and more proactive in considering what I want to do,” he says. 

His early notable works included Public Observations II (2010), a video filmed at Ōtara market, which explores ideas of individualism, community and the unconscious protocols we follow in public. 

Leatinu’u worked as an arts educator for 10 years while continuing to make his own work. He became known for leading collaborative, community-engaged projects that often involved public participation. For example, his 2017 work Earthpushers invited members of the public to physically transport small bags of earth across the Hauraki Gulf on the Waiheke ferry. This movement of earth over water created a space for people to reflect upon the island’s history of excavation, and in turn reflect upon their own relationship with the natural world. 

It was around this time that Leatinu’u also made space for some reflections and life changes of his own. 

“I thought I’d always be teaching art when I wasn’t making art, but learning Māori language had such a personal pull for me,” he says. 

Returning to being a student again, he went from knowing a handful of Māori words to becoming proficient with the language in just four years. 

“Being fluent in the Māori language was a huge achievement, as this is something that my children and family can share and benefit from,” he says. 

But wait, there’s more. After becoming fluent in te reo Māori, Leatinu’u then began teaching the language at a tertiary level, just a few years after he could barely speak it. 

“It continues to hold me in wanting to share it with my students,” he says. “As a Māori language teacher, I am grateful to be in a position where I play a role in keeping my ancestral language alive and to share it with those who do – or do not – share the same ancestral link to the language. There is a level of kotahitanga I see in my classes that I have yet to experience anywhere else.” 

While it may sound unique for an artist to turn to language teaching, Leatinu’u says he’s not the only one with a rich extra-curricular life. 

“There are a number of Māori language teachers who are also great creative professionals, so I’m actually happy to be part of the collective.” 

And when he’s not teaching, Leatinu’u keeps himself busy with his children who “continue to teach me new things” and building things with his hands. And while his career may have taken a path that he couldn’t have imagined back at Elam, he has learned that it is all part of the journey. 

“I am where I need to be,” he says.