Chevron Hassett: Boy, Away From Home
‘Boy, Away From Home’, explores Māori male identity, addressing the tension between historical legacies and contemporary realities.
‘Boy, Put Your Shoulders Up’, Mangere Arts Centre 2025. Image courtesy of the artist.
23.05.26
13.10.26
The works challenge stereotypes, intertwining personal history, cultural heritage, and modern perceptions of Māori men.
Using suburban architecture, the series examines how space shapes identity and memory, embedding ancestral knowledge within everyday environments. Through this lens, Hassett reclaims and redefines narratives, offering a deeply personal self-portrait that honours his whānau, acknowledges resilience, and sparks conversation about identity in an urban context.
The Artist
Chevron Hassett (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu) is an artist whose practice engages with sculpture, photography and public installation. His work responds to the impact of urbanisation on Māori communities, informed by his own upbringing and community and grounded in the visual and spatial language of Māori design. Working with reclaimed materials and architectural references, Hassett reconfigures forms to speak to ideas of shelter, identity and collective memory. His installations often function as living spaces of exchange, where mātauranga Māori and the urban experience intersect.
Committed to community engagement, Hassett works across galleries and public spaces to reflect the relationships, histories and futures of the people and places he is connected to. His practice centres whanaungatanga (kinship), drawing strength from shared experience and cultural continuity. Hassett holds a Bachelor of Design with Honours from Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University and a diploma in Indigenous Art, specialising in Whakairo Māori. He has exhibited in Aotearoa and Australia, including at Artspace Aotearoa, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, The Dowse Art Museum and Artspace Sydney. In 2017 he received a Ngā Manu Pīrere award from Creative New Zealand, and in 2022 a Springboard Award from the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi.