Hinemoana Baker

Hinemoana brings her activism to the PhD by writing political poetry and investigating how reading and writing Indigiqueer poetry can be a rongoā for takatāpui.

Commenced 2025

Poet and performer Hinemoana Baker is the author of four poetry collections and the producer of several albums of audio poetry and original music. Having lived in Berlin for almost a decade, Hinemoana returned to Aotearoa in 2024 as writer in residence at Randell Cottage in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara Wellington. Her book Funkhaus (Te Herenga Waka University Press 2021) was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and has since been translated into German and Polish.  As well as poetry and music, Hinemoana has written and performed for theatre, created short films and recorded experimental sound work. All of this has seen her on many stages and pages nationally and internationally in the last 25 years. Hinemoana's writing and performances pivot around her love of sound and the lyric, a passion for te ao Māori and 'a desire to see an end to empire in my lifetime.'

Hinemoana says: 'The creative project for this PhD involves me writing a collection of explicitly political, activist poetry, in a manuscript currently called "Exhaust World". The critical thesis investigates how the reading and writing of Indigiqueer poetry could be a rongoā, a form of healing, for takatāpui (Māori with diverse gender and sexualities).'

Read more:

• Randell Cottage Trust
• Hinemoana's books
• Video
• Audio
• On Being