Michelle Mayn works within the realms of textile, crafting, Māori weaving and installation.
Mayn draws on manually time-intensive and universal methods of weaving, binding, twining and knotting to create ephemeral object-based installations and sculptures. Large-scale intraactive installations further utilise air, wind, light, gravity, tension and other unseen forces to activate material, thereby bringing the material to life. Kuruwaka & Sacks stitches together three generations of matrilineal relationships. A hessian sack carries the earthy essence of a beloved step-grandmother, forming a foundation for writhing pods emptied of their fertile seed. Harakeke seed capsules, gathered and dried over long summer days are laid over plastic red sacking - whose wood proffered warmth to Mayn’s mother and her, on a cold pandemic night. Red flickers in a burst of vibrant, feminal colour, constrained within the symbolic dimensions of a hearth. Each material mnemonic contains notions of feminal wisdom quietly gathered through the seasonal rhythms of life.

Mayn holds a Masters of Visual Arts with Honours (First Class), Auckland University of Technology (2020); Traditional and Contemporary Māori Weaving, Unitec (2011). Recent exhibitions include Unifying Threads, mothermother Iteration 32, Te Atamira, Queenstown; CONTEXTILE, Contemporary Textile Art Biennial, Portugal (2022); Sculpture in the Garden, Outdoor Garden Trial, Auckland (2021-22).