Director’s Foreword

In January of last year we announced that we would be working with Creative New Zealand as delivery partner for Fiona Pardington’s presentation at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Over the past twelve months we’ve worked extensively with Fiona, her brother Neil Pardington (the creative director for the project), Fiona’s Auckland-based gallery, Starkwhite, and numerous other stakeholders to create something truly special for the Biennale. From designing the exhibition, to working out how to transport the works to Venice, to creating the accompanying publication, the project has involved staff from throughout this Gallery. Fiona’s exhibition Taharaki Skyside opens in Venice in May, and in this Bulletin, its curators Felicity Milburn and Chloe Cull talk about who and what the project involves.

Opening here in Ōtautahi at the start of March, our new exhibition Ana Iti: Ngahere Behind a Pile of Metal considers the legacies of deforestation and significance of kauri trees. The writing of poet and essayist Nadine Hura, whose Slowing The Sun was published last year, was important to Ana during the conception and development of this show, so we’re delighted to include a response here from Nadine.

Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga is an exhibition that we invited artist Cora-Allan to curate for the Gallery. It brings historical treasures from around the Pacific that are now in the collection of Canterbury Museum into conversation with new artworks made by six contemporary artists. In this issue, Cora-Allan reflects on a recent wānanga she held with a number of the artists as they developed their works for the show.

Elsewhere in the Gallery, Kā Whakatauraki: The Promises brings together the ten Kāi Tahu land sale purchase deeds. For Bulletin, Helen Brown of Ngāi Tahu Archive looks in detail at one of these documents – Kemp’s Deed. This was the document by which the Crown purchased nearly one-third of Te Waipounamu South Island from Kāi Tahu. Signed at Akaroa in 1848, it was to become the focus of the Kāi Tahu Claim (Te Kērēme) for much of the century before the Waitangi Tribunal of the 1980s.

Our My Favourite is supplied by designer and musician Luke Wood, who selects a work with a complicated history. And Pagework is by artist Oscar Bannan, who recontextualises moments from his own childhood as he examines the things that stand in for our memories.

We were very sad to hear of the passing of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most respected letterpress printers, artist and poet Alan Loney, who died in Melbourne in February. Alan recently made an extremely generous gift to the Gallery’s Robert and Barbara Stewart Library and Archives, presenting a selection of handprinted books and his archives relating to his long and distinguished career.

Finally, it is with great pleasure that we announce a fantastic addition to the Gallery’s collection. When we recently hosted Te Uru’s superb survey exhibition Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections, one of the highlights for us and our audiences was the powerful kauri and steel sculpture Te Wehenga o Rangi rāua ko Papa. We are honoured that the Graham whānau have decided that the Gallery is the right home for this important piece of Aotearoa New Zealand art history. Matua Fred maintained warm connections with Ōtautahi after undertaking a residency at Christchurch Polytechnic (now Ara) in the 1980s. His work will return here once the exhibition completes its tour at Pātaka Art + Museum in Porirua, and we look forward to displaying it again soon.