Gavin Hipkins (b. 1968, Auckland) holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Auckland and an MA in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is currently Associate Professor at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. His photographs and moving images interrogate how images create meaning through fragmentation and circulation. His work explores the nation-state, particularly in colonized countries in an era of reimagined communities and ideas of social and political utopia.

Hipkins has exhibited extensively over the past three decades: Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland (2021); 25FPS Festival, Zagreb (2020); Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin (2020); Stuttgarter Filmwinter (2020); 9th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2019); International Film Festival Rotterdam (2018); Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (International Competition), Germany, (2017, 2016); Uppsala International Short Film Festival (2017); The Jewish Museum, New York (2015); International Film Festival Rotterdam (2015); Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2014); Edinburgh Art Festival (2014); Armory Film, The Armory Show, New York (2012); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011); Austrian Museum of Applied and Contemporary Art (MAK), Vienna (2011); Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, (2010); San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (2007); International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York (2006); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, (2004); CCA Watts Institute for Contemporary Arts, California (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2000); Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guanine d'Alba, Italy (2000).

His video installation The Precinct (2018) was commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) for the 2018 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT 9) in Brisbane. He represented New Zealand at the 1998 Biennale of Sydney and the 2002 Biennale of São Paulo. He was awarded the inaugural residency for New Zealand artists at Artspace Sydney in 1998. In 2006 he completed an artist residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. His work is included in important public collections including the Queensland Art Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, and the George Eastman Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York.