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C H A N E L D U F F A R T

@chanelduff_art

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This little red notebook travels everywhere with me.

For the past two years, I’ve been considering and reconsidering my position in the art world, particularly the politics of being non-Māori in the toi Māori space. My life is intertwined with Te Ao Māori through my husband, our three daughters, and the tikanga I’ve been taught and continue to learn. But I’ve held back from sharing my work more widely. Somewhere between belonging, inheritance and responsibility, I’ve been trying to understand my place.

At the beginning of this year, I thought I’d leave this space, focus on other areas of my practice. I would no longer work with harakeke. The knowledge passed on to me would remain within my whānau, and past students I’ve taught, and that would be enough.

Then the dreams started.

Works I had made, combining muka with ostrich eggshell beads, began appearing in my dreams, with an overwhelming need to complete them.

I can only describe the dreams as spirit-led.

Is it the material speaking to me? Whenua? God? Spirit? Ancestors? All of the above? I don’t know, but I’ve been called back to it, with a peace and confidence I didn’t have before. A collab I’m here for.

So here I am, returning to the notebook. Writing down what has been given to me, following where it leads, and sharing the process and the work as they come… by @chanelduff_art

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2 days ago

𝘜𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘥, 2022
𝘔𝘶𝘬𝘢, 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦

Some works quietly become the beginning of everything.

This was the first piece where I brought together muka and beadwork. More importantly, it was the first time I allowed my husband’s material ancestry and my own to begin sitting alongside one another. That small gesture became the catalyst for an ongoing inquiry into cross-cultural material relationships that continues to shape my practice today.

It’s now taken on a new life in a new home, where its story continues in relationship—with place, whānau, and the material ancestries that brought it into being ✨ by @chanelduff_art

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19 days ago

Whatu and hukahuka and aho on repeat and I love it, it’s magic ✨ by @chanelduff_art

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a month ago

Lately. Process process process ✨ by @chanelduff_art

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2 months ago

Our favourite memory of Nan ♥️ Nan, Maraea Kiel (McMillan) passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, 2 August. She fought a short and tough battle with multiple myeloma. Grandmother to Gowan, and Great Grandmother to our girls. She was the most hard working, determined woman I knew. A storyteller, a singer, a lover of people and lit up every room she walked into. Her generous and loving spirit lives on in her future generations. How special to have known her and to be so loved by her 💔

We love you Nan, moe mai rā ♥️ by @chanelduff_art

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2 months ago

Made for a show which didn’t eventuate, and have loved having it at home, but I think I’m ready to part with this one ♥️

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘬𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘢, 2024
𝘔𝘶𝘬𝘢, 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴
𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴 75𝘤𝘮 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 5𝘤𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦 by @chanelduff_art

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3 months ago

Slow and steady ✨ by @chanelduff_art

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4 months ago

Stills by @chanelduff_art

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6 months ago

I’ve been thinking about water not just as matter, but as memory.

Water carries—through land, through body, through time. It holds the traces of movement, of survival, of return. For the Khoisan, ostrich eggs were never only vessels; they were technologies of continuity. Carried across arid landscapes, buried to keep cool, marked, shared—each one holding not just water, but knowledge of where to go, how to live, who we are.

Laying the broken shells out to receive rain, I sit with that lineage. Fragments becoming receivers again. Open forms holding what arrives. A gesture toward remembering.

As someone of Khoisan descent, this act feels both intimate and expansive—like listening for something older than myself. The rain gathers in each hollow, like dispersed memory finding shape again. Each piece a small archive. But it also brings me to a question I can’t resolve: how do you transmit knowledge you can’t fully access?

I think of Jamilah Sabur, whose work traces migration, water, and diasporic time—where the ocean becomes both separator and connector. And Miwon Kwon, whose writing on site and displacement reminds us that place is not fixed, but carried, relational, and continually made. Through this lens, the shells shift—from objects into sites of transmission—

They speak in pieces—of what has been broken, and what still insists on presence—sitting between site and body, archive and offering, holding rain, holding absence, holding memory…

missing Cape Town and my people. by @chanelduff_art

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6 months ago

The beginning of my ostrich eggshell bead-making journey with my children, circa 2022.

The indigenous Khoisan people of South Africa—some of my ancestors (pictured at the end of this carousel)—have long used ostrich eggshell for water vessels and adornment. Carrying this knowledge forward, I shaped ostrich egg shell hukahuka for Amelia’s kākahu, honouring the weaving together of her South African and Māori whakapapa.

I’m now preparing for a larger body of work and am gathering as many blown eggs as I can. If you have a connection or can help, please send me a DM 🙏🏾

Ngā mihi nui ♥️ by @chanelduff_art

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6 months ago

Kua hinga te tōtara i Te Waonui-a-Tāne.

I find myself sitting with a heaviness that words struggle to hold — trying to express what Dante has meant to me, both within my practice and along my teaching journey. I was among the last cohort of Elam tauira to learn under his guidance, a privilege I will carry always.

It was through him that I was first introduced to harakeke, and from that moment, a deep and enduring relationship began. With his support, I created my first kākahu. He once said I wouldn’t be able to complete it during my time with him — but I did in two sleepless months! I’m grateful he was there to meet it.

Tonight at the poroporoaki, hearing stories from tauira of the 90s made me realise even more the depth of his influence — the many lives he shaped, the knowledge he nurtured, and the legacy he leaves behind.

Moe mai rā, e te rangatira. Moe mai rā ♥️♥️♥️ by @chanelduff_art

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6 months ago

Ngā tauira o Ngā toi taketake coming through with this scaled kete ♥️♥️♥️ proud kaiako with @arapeta__

Wouldn’t be where I am in my art practice and teaching journey without @___prr___ , Dante Bonica and @katie.isla.middleton , @anioneill , forever grateful x by @chanelduff_art

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7 months ago