Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
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.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
Ana Iti: Ngahere Behind a Pile of Metal
An immersive installation considering the legacies of deforestation and significance of kauri trees.
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Late night Wednesday until 9pm
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Free entry, free wifi
Collection
Heidi Brickell Kūtorohia these uaua
Heidi Brickell’s works reflect on relationships, and how the language that connects them can slip and slide between multiple meanings. The title of this painting blends te reo Māori and English, and refers to how you might clench or engage your muscles for a journey. That physical shift in energy echoes the mental engagement that comes with a desire to learn or communicate. Heidi overlays different materials to suggest bodily forms like hands, muscles and brain. Presenting the canvas as a pātiki (diamond) rather than the more-typical square adds to the sense of movement and creates a new space for the sharing of ideas
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)
My Favourite
Bill Culbert and Ralph Hotere: Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana
My time working at Te Puna o Waiwhetū was strewn with highlights, but key among these is the experience of hanging Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert’s Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana (1991), which was also my first experience of seeing this work up close and personal. Although not the greatest work or most popular work of art in the collection, this lithograph will always be special to me. I love the sparse aesthetic, the sense of a light touch. The bold decision to not occupy the whole page as the collaborators examine restraint, notations of the relevance of place and connections.
Interview
New Photographs in the Collection
Our new collection exhibition Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection features a number of newly acquired works from Aotearoa New Zealand artists that expand our contemporary photographic collection. Melanie Oliver asked a few of these artists to share their thoughts on photography and the works that have found a new home at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
Interview
Pecking Order
Felicity Milburn: Judy, it’s great to be working with you again, this time on a work for the entry wall leading into our new collection rehang, Perilous. It’s made up of a frieze of photographic panels combining images of handwritten lists and pieces of bread that have been partially eaten away by birds, and you’ve called it Pecking Order. Can you tell us a little about how it came about?
Judy Darragh: Thanks, it’s great to have this new work included in Perilous, it was already in existence and fitted well with ideas in the show.
Life over lockdown became reduced – we were at home, everything was shut down and it became a surreal and shared experience for us all. While out walking I observed the flourishing of bird life, and I had time to hear and feed them in the back garden every day. Feeding the birds was very satisfying.