Kia ora,
I'm Ethan
I'm a designer and researcher based in Aotearoa New Zealand. My practice blends indigenous storytelling, critical cartography, and digital systems thinking to reimagine how we visualise land, data, and identity.
A mapping project exploring dreams, memory, and spatial narratives through visual storytelling.
A research and design project exploring the relationship between digital consumption, attention, and wellbeing.
Examining the role of digital platforms in shaping public understanding of climate change.
Embodied Cartographies serves as a digital repository and critical framework that unifies a diverse body of research into a singular framework.
Visualising the complex interrelations between people and environment using data-driven maps and diagrams.
Investigating phosphate extraction, colonial histories, and indigenous rights in the Western Sahara region.
A playful, experimental approach to learning te reo Māori.
A collaborative exhibition design exploring iterative processes in postgraduate design research and practice.
An immersive spatial installation exploring the relationship between form, space, and materiality through experimental construction.
An immersive installation exploring space, sound, and the metaphor of the vessel.
An immersive installation exploring space, sound, and the metaphor of the vessel.
A photographic journey retracing whakapapa through the East Cape, mapping personal and ancestral memory.
Exploring narrative through sequential imagery and experimental visual composition.
A series of works exploring the relationship between technology, typography, the grid, and communication.
A brand identity for a Māori photography exhibition, creating a typographic and visual identity for the exhibition at Toi Poneke.
Designer
+ Researcher
Ethan Sheaf-Morrison is an independent designer, researcher, and developer based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Grounded in his Māori whakapapa (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui), his work intersects indigenous storytelling, critical cartography, and digital world-building.
He creates poetic, technically rigorous responses to social and environmental systems through data visualisation, mapping, and typographic experimentation — working with university research centres, independent artists, and policy organisations.
Experience
Teaching Fellow, Victoria University — 2025
Research Assistant, Victoria University — 2021–
Design Tutor, Victoria University — 2021–
Education
Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University — Master of Design with Distinction, 2024
Bachelor of Design Innovation, 2023