Lace & Location: an exploration of lace practice in Aotearoa

Rowan Panther brings contemporary Pacific interpretations to traditional European lacemaking - consciously working together her own Irish, English, German and Samoan heritage in the context of Aotearoa, New Zealand. In this woven work we see both the mark of her ancestors and possibilities for the future. Working primarily with muka, a raw fibre processed from the Harakeke plant native to Aotearoa, she honours the land in which she comes from. The use of muka reflects her identity as tangata tiriti (New Zealander of non Māori origin) and connects the maker, object and wearer to this whenua (land). Although the designs are loyal to the traditional European lace patterns, she produces wearable adornments that draw on forms and motifs from wider Moana Oceania cultural traditions.

Rowan believes that when these threads flow from her fingers, she traces a path to her own roots, attempting to heal some of the complexity created through the diaspora of her whakapapa (ancestors).

ROWAN PANTHER

Rowan Panther makes lace that weaves together diverse European and Oceanic textile traditions. Panther is responding to the complexities of colonisation and to her mixed Irish, English, German and Samoan ancestry. She is part of the cultural recovery of a European handmade lacemaking tradition that was nearly destroyed by industrialisation. At the same time she is a participant in the cultural celebration of Pacific craft practices that were irreparably altered by the processes of diaspora. 

Panther completed a Diploma in Photography from Unitec, 2002, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam, 2008. She has exhibited in Aotearoa, Sydney, London, Paris and Munich. Her work is held in the collection of Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Pataka Art + Museum and the British Museum. In 2021 she received the Blumhardt Foundation Dame Doreens Gift and was selected for Schmuck in 2024.

Instagram and Facebook: @rowanpantherlace