Janet Lilo
Janet Crystal-Lee Lilo MNZM (born 1982) is a New Zealand visual artist from Auckland. She is of Tainui, Ngāpuhi, Samoan and Niuean descent. Lilo earned a Master of Arts in art and design from the Auckland University of Technology in 2007; her thesis was Editing identity: Lost and found in translation. A social commentator, she uses digital photography, video and multimedia installations, often with monitors and projections, in galleries, shop windows and online.
Lilo has held solo exhibitions in New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Japan, and has participated in group shows across Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, France, Germany and the United States. Her video installation ParkLife featured in Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand at City Gallery Wellington. In 2009 she received the JENESYS residency in Sapporo. In 2011 she won the Contemporary Pacific Art Award in the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards. In 2013 her installation Right of Way was shown at Artspace Aotearoa as part of the Auckland Triennial.
In 2016 her solo exhibition Janet Lilo: Status Update at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery surveyed ten years of her work, including a 10,000-photo collage and a book. Public art includes the large-scale banana lightboxes on Karangahape Road titled Don’t Dream it’s Over. She received the Auckland Festival of Photography’s annual commission in 2017. In the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts. Her works are in major public collections, including the Auckland Art Gallery and Te Papa Tongarewa.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:13 (CET).