The series Whao consists of three images, all featuring a piece of pāua shell carved into the shape of a nail, contrasted against a backdrop of buildings and structures that make up our urban spaces. The word “whao” in te reo Māori can refer to a nail, chisel, or iron tool. These nails have been ‘hammered’ back into the cracks and corners of the city, allowing us to consider the potential within objects and materials.
Whao draws from a form of Māori innovation: the practice of bending iron nails brought over by Pākehā settlers into matau or fishhooks. The pāua shell nail highlights the auahataka or innovation of our tīpuna and their ability to see potential in material. Drawing from his whakapapa of Pākehā whalers and takata Kāi Tahu, Kaan considers the meeting point of these two cultures through the transformation of material and form.
In this photographic series, the artist has enlarged these objects physically to make visible the objects, ideas and histories that often go overlooked in our cities, like a bent nail or the buried middens that lie beneath reclaimed land. Whao brings this mātauraka back into te ao hurihuri, acknowledging the importance of innovation and adaptation.
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About the Artist
Kāhu Kaan (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā, Chinese) is a multidisciplinary artist who works across sculpture, installation and photography. Graduating from Dunedin School of Art in 2025 with a Bachelor of Visual Art (Distinction), he uses materials that are often found or gathered as a way of exploring how identity is developed through culture and environment, both collectively and individually. He presents these objects and materials in a way that is often surprising or unfamiliar, allowing the viewer to consider these objects in a way that they might not have in their everyday setting.