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.
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
Exhibition
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era
An exquisite selection of etchings, lithographs, wood-engravings and linocuts made during one of the most dynamic periods in Aotearoa’s art history.
Collection
Louisa Afoa Blue Clam
“I can’t speak for all women of the Moana […] but my experiences with the wider societal representation of the Polynesian brown body have been binary. Either you fit into the male gaze’s dream of a dusky maiden, or you don’t.” Louisa Afoa’s glorious Blue Clam recreates and reframes the Birth of Venus, Botticelli’s pervasive vision of idealised feminine beauty, replacing it with a bold and empowering new one – her own brown body taking up space without apology.
(Dummies & Doppelgängers, 2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025)
Collection
Melissa Macleod Untitled (action: Brighton estuary)
Melissa Macleod lies across a flood-prone track in the Avon Heathcote Estuary, her body forming an inadequate temporary barrier. The track is close to where Melissa lives in New Brighton and over the last decade she has made several works relating to how the area was affected by the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes.
The extreme ground movement altered the structure of the land, leaving much of it increasingly vulnerable to flooding, a risk further heightened by climate change. Macleod’s solitary action is an expression of her frustration that a remedy has not been prioritised, and an acknowledgment of our collective human responsibility to protect the whenua.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
