Emiko Sheehan

INFO

Name	Emiko Sheehan (she/her)
Born	1993
Country of Birth	Aotearoa
Place of Residence	Kirikiriroa Hamilton
Ethnicities	Japanese, Māori (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Kahu Ngāti Unu, Waikato Tainui, Raukawa, Tūwharetoa)
Artform	Visual arts, Socially engaged art
Decades Active	2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Emiko Sheehan is an artist who works across different forms and materials: drawing, video, harakeke, poetry and performance. Seeing her art-making as part of a larger process of re-indigenisation, Sheehan seeks to bring her everyday life into harmony with her art practice and reconnect with whakapapa and whenua through her work.

Sheehan lives in Waikato. In 2023, she was one of ten artists who were selected for Whiria Te Tāngata, a 12-month programme run by Creative Waikato. Led by artist and curator Leafā Wilson, the programme offered the artists a full-time stipend, support, and mentorship. Through Creative Waikato, Sheehan runs a programme called Wāwāhi Tahā, which provides a nurturing creative space for mothers and babies to make art and connect with te taiao (the natural world). The Waikato is Sheehan’s tūrangawaewae — she grew up in Kirkiriroa Hamilton and has hapū links to Te Kuiti, Te Awamutu and Taupiri.

In 2014, before beginning university, Sheehan spent a year in Japan, working on a farm and immersing herself in Japanese language and culture. Sheehan’s father is Japanese, and in some of her early work, she developed a “moonchild / half diasporic Japanese / Maniapoto living away from home” persona, in response to the fatigue of searching for an “authentic self”.

After graduating from Massey University with a BFA (Hons) in 2019, Sheehan lived in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, before relocating to Waikato during the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown.