Introducing our initial speaker line-up for Nui te Kōrero 2025! More speakers will be announced here as they’re confirmed.
Puawai Cairns (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui)
Award winning author and experienced arts governor, Puawai Cairns is a respected leader with over two decades of experience in museum practice and cultural heritage in Aotearoa. She is the Director of Audience and Insight at Te Papa Tongarewa, where she leads the strategic work of connecting the national museum with diverse audiences across Aotearoa and beyond.
Puawai has an extensive background in curatorial practice and research, including her previous role as Head of Mātauranga Māori at Te Papa. Her work has centred on contemporary social history, with a focus on amplifying the voices and stories of Māori communities. Her award-winning book Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of resistance, persistence and defiance which she co-wrote won the 2019 Ockham Book Award for Best Illustrated Non-fiction, and Gallipoli: The Scale of our War an in-depth exploration of Te Papa’s renowned Gallipoli exhibition.
Beyond her work at Te Papa, Puawai is an active advocate for Indigenous perspectives and leadership in the heritage sector. She serves on multiple boards, including Heritage New Zealand, the Māori Heritage Council, and Atamira Dance Company. Her advisory work extends nationally and internationally, where she champions inclusive and transformative museum practices.
Puawai lives in Wellington with her partner and daughter.
Pelenakeke Brown (Gataivai, Siutu-Salailua)
Pelenakeke is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections between disability theory and Sāmoan concepts. Her practice spans visual art, text, and performance. She is from Aotearoa and is an Sāmoan/Pakehā, crip artist.
She has worked internationally presenting performances, exhibitions, published writing and residencies in New York, California, Berlin, Hamburg, London and Aotearoa.
She has worked with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gibney Dance Center, The New York Library for the Performing Arts and other institutions globally. Selected residencies include Eyebeam, The Laundromat Project, and Denniston Hill. Her work has been written about in Art in America, The New York Times, Art Agenda and The Art Paper. In 2020 she was recognised with a Creative New Zealand Pacific Toa award.
In 2024, she was a BRIClab Contemporary Artist in Residence, a programme supporting innovative contemporary artists in New York. She was also recently awarded a Wynn Newhouse Award, which recognises talented artists who have a disability and whose work contributes significantly to contemporary art.
She is informed by the Samoan concept of the vā- relationships across time and space, crip time and is continually trying to find sites to investigate that hold both of these dual theories. Pelenakeke’s work straddles many mediums, is it a poem, a visual work or a choreographic score- she asks, why not all three?
Karen Walker
Newly appointed Arts Council member, Karen Walker is an internationally celebrated New Zealand designer and entrepreneur. Since establishing her eponymous label in 1989, Karen has earned international recognition for her work. Her designs have been showcased on global stages, including 20 seasons at New York Fashion Week, and eight seasons at London Fashion Week, and through collaborations with brands such as Disney, Uniqlo, and Sephora, as well as locally with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
Karen brings over three decades of experience with brand development, business strategy, innovation and creative leadership. Beyond her design practice, Karen is deeply engaged with the arts, with a long history of collaboration and initiatives that elevate New Zealand’s creative industries. In 2018, she represented New Zealand at The Commonwealth Fashion Exchange through her collaboration with the Kūki ‘Āirani Creative Māmās.
Karen is consistently ranked in Business of Fashion’s BoF 500, highlighting her as one of the most influential figures in the global fashion industry.
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