Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu
The islands of Aotearoa New Zealand were once inhabited by birds. Shrieking, warbling, tinkling, booming. Forest, river, marsh, mountain, ocean, shore—everything charged with their mauri, life force.
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Nathaniel Herz Jardine
My Favourite
Harry Linley Richardson: Cynthia’s Birthday
I have always been drawn to, and repelled by, Harry Linley Richardson’s Cynthia’s Birthday. This odd painting – capturing a group of children, gathered around a birthday cake with the graven solemnity of a pre-Renaissance Lamentation – typifies a quality of ambiguity I most value in both painting and poetry; something I call counterplay. Borrowed from chess, counterplay is the term I use to describe the sense that a work is pulling you in two directions at once, usually with tragicomic effect.