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Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu

15 August 2026 –
8 February 2027

From taoka tuku iho to contemporary moving image, Aotearoa’s birds take centre stage.

In te ao Māori, birds and their habits are closely observed, carrying rich metaphor, poetry and instruction. This extraordinary gathering of artworks brings centuries of human engagement with birds to life. Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu is an immersive exploration that highlights the significance of manu and te taiao—birds and the natural world—in Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history. Gathering birds within the environments they inhabit—forest, river, marsh, mountain, ocean, shore—Bird Land invites reflection on ecological interconnections alongside layered cultural meaning. Balancing vulnerability and wonder, it encourages connection and contemplation of the enduring inspiration of New Zealand’s birds.

Curator:
Ken Hall

Exhibition number: 1167

Upcoming Event

Inspired by Ngā Toi Ana

11 September

Join us in the auditorium for a short film on the Ngāi Tahu artists rock art hui produced by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu with funding from Te Māngai Pāho, followed by a viewing of Fiona Pardington's Pouākai on display in Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu on the ground floor.

Event Info

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Commentary
If You Build It, They Will Come

If You Build It, They Will Come

Greater Christchurch has had more bird species recorded than any other part of Aotearoa New Zealand. Here, we’re blessed with three large coastal wetlands of international significance for both resident and migratory birds. Within the Ōtautahi Christchurch district we have around 320 kilometres of rocky shoreline and coastal cliffs, almost twenty kilometres of sandy shoreline and dunes, dryland environments, tussock grasslands, podocarp forests and shrublands. There are whole other worlds beneath the tides that – as terrestrial species – most of us seldom think about. And did you know we also have around fifty islands, islets and rock stacks across the Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula coastline?

Continued

Conor Clarke Tirohanga Manu 2025. Photograph. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2025

John Hovell East Cape Garden II: Awakening Upon Hearing the First Cuckoo / I whea koe i te tangihanga o te pipiwharauroa? 1973. Oil on hessian on cardboard. Collection of Tairāwhiti Museum, Te Whare Taonga o Te Tairāwhiti

Charles Heaphy Kakariki, from Ship Cove and Teawaiti, August 1839 1839. Watercolour. Collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington