Ngā takunetanga
Events

Huikaau – where currents meet celebrates the past, present, and future of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection – Aotearoa’s first civic collection of art, which was established in Ōtepoti Dunedin in 1884. This exhibition upholds the stories and ideas carried within the collection, welcomes new arrivals, and continues to work in partnership to bring Māori and indigenous perspectives to the fore.

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‘Te Paparahi Toi Māori’ the Auckland Art Walk guide, which brings Māori culture and history to life in the city’s public spaces for Aucklanders and tourists to explore.

Taimoana | Coastlines explores the art of Aotearoa New Zealand, locating it within Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, the wider Pacific region. Taking the concept of the coast, or shoreline, as a starting point, the exhibition navigates a sea of ideas, offering multiple perspectives on New Zealand art through a selection of works from the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

From dazzling UV-light installations to delicate work in harakeke, experience the art of Maureen Lander (Ngāpuhi, Te Hikutu, Pākehā). Lander is one of News Zealand's foremost expert on raranga and a master weaver herself.

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📸 Maarten Holl.

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Two monumental artworks - one made from burnt timber, the other from fired clay. An unmissable opportunity to encounter two icons of contemporary Māori art.

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📸 Jane Harris. Te Papa

Grounded invites visitors to see land not just as terrain, but as a foundation for exploring ecology, sovereignty, memory, and home. Featuring 35 artists based in the Americas and the Pacific, the exhibition showcases 40 works, spanning the 1970s to today, with many on view for the first time. Works include Lisa Reihana’s monumental video installation In Pursuit of Venus [infected] that reimagines colonial narratives from her perspective as a Māori artist; photographs and video by Clarissa Tossin, Laura Aguilar, and Ana Mendieta that trace the artists’ bodies in dialogue with the earth; paintings and sculptures by Eamon Ore Girón, Courtney M. Leonard, and Rose B. Simpson that blend technology with Indigenous iconography and craft; and works by Leslie Martinez and Abraham Cruzvillegas that upcycle everyday materials to document consumption and to suggest possibilities for renewal.

NGV INTERNATIONAL​

180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne​

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This display brings together works by artists and designers from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia (including the Torres Strait). Spanning diverse periods, places and media – including photography, printmaking, painting, sculpture, video, fashion, tapa and lei – these works explore both contemporary innovation and the preservation of customary cultural practices. Seen together, these works highlight the vitality of art from the Pacific, and its role as a powerful vehicle for storytelling, ceremony, resistance and the transmission of culture across generations.

Step into a vast space, where tradition is not only preserved, but transformed – where the carved line becomes light, movement and code.

Whakairo by Kereama Taepa is a bold fusion of tradition and technology, in which the ancestral art of Māori whakairo (carving) meets the evolving language of augmented reality (AR). In this interactive exhibition, Taepa explores the role of whakairo in contemporary Aotearoa, extending its presence beyond physical form into the digital realm.

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This exhibition is a deeply personal retrospective that honours the artist’s whakapapa (heritage, family line), life journey and enduring legacy in Māori art. Presented for the first time in Tauranga Moana, this major exhibition draws together a curated selection of drawings, paintings, jewellery, and carvings spanning nearly six decades of practice. It is both a homecoming and a tribute to the ancestors, landscapes and stories that have shaped his world.

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Along the 60km scenic stretch of State Highway 1 from Oaro to Waiau Toa (Clarence River), experience this unique art trail centred around seven safe stopping places. Pull over to see murals, pouwhenua and tekoteko (carved pillars), beautiful native planting and information panels that share the rich stories of the hapū of Kaikōura.

Presented alongside the survey exhibition Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections, this exhibition provides a focused, in-depth look at Graham’s body of work made about the Waikato River.

This exhibition features a series of works that trace significant places and historic sites along the Waikato awa. Rich with symbolism, the exhibition tracks the length of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest river from its beginnings at Mount Ruapehu to the powerful currents rushing past the Museum, and onwards to the sea at Te Puuaha o Waikato (Port Waikato).

Image: Fred Graham, Te Puaaha o Waikato (Port Waikato), kauri, swamp kauri, paua shell, custom wood, 2012. Courtesy of the Waikato River Authority.

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This collection comprises more than 60 graphic works and paintings by major New Zealand contemporary artist Ralph Hotere. A long-time supporter of the Eastern Southland Gallery, Hotere chose to gift 36 lithographs to Gore in 2001.

UNSW Galleries - Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd Paddington NSW 2021

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‘All the World’s Memories’ brings together 10 artists from Australia and Aotearoa whose practices consider how memory can be seen and understood.

Fiona Clark
J Davies
Nick FitzPatrick
Matthew Harris
Pat Hoffie
Ana Iti
Zac Langdon-Pole
Lillian O’Neil
Grant Stevens
Desmond Woodforde

The exhibition’s title references Toute la mémoire du monde 1956, Alain Resnais’s short film on the ambition (and ultimate impossibility) of preserving human knowledge. Following a book through the Bibliothèque nationale de France, from classification to storage and circulation, the film presents the library as a site where memories are abstracted from lived experience and rendered only legible through institutional authority.

Curated by José Da Silva

Here, “life” takes on many meanings. It could gesture to the unstable and surprising nature of materials, which—despite the best efforts of the institution to halt decay—act in ways that exceed human intention, and inevitably change over time. It could speak to the ways artists transform earthly matter to come to terms with, reclaim, and regenerate ways of seeing, feeling, knowing and being in the world. Life, or liveness, may also signal the aspirations artists hold for artworks to act in service of transformation—to play an active role within the world, or in struggles against injustice.

He Waa Uenuku Queer Horologies showcases the work of ten queer and takataapui artists whose art engages with time. These range from recent NCAA winner Zena Elliott’s trans-microbot installation ‘Hinekahurangi AKL-780’ and choreographic artist val smith’s installation ‘TRUSS’, to Neke Moa’s works of adornment ‘Ko te aroha noa’ and ‘Ngāti’, to Shannon Novak’s AI-altered digital photographs (originally drawn from the Collection of Te Whare Taonga o Waikato Museum & Gallery and painstakingly modified). Diana Lee-Gobbit, a Suffolk-born multimedia artist is represented by the earliest pieces in the exhibition, three works on paper with futuristic and science fiction themes created in the 1980s. Alongside local artist Elliott, other Kirikiriroa Hamilton artists include 2023 Te Tumu Toi Arts Foundation Springboard recipient Tia Barrett, as well as Kelly Joseph, Nadia Gush and Kahurangiariki Smith. Former Wintec lecturer Lisa Benson is also represented in the exhibition.

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Manaia Carswell's first solo exhibition 'Aupiki', explores different aspects of herself, her whakapapa and what it means to be māori today.

Using muka, harakeke and the Māori art of weaving raranga and whatu, she will create installations that will offer up a different perspective.

An immersive installation considering the legacies of deforestation and significance of kauri trees.

In this new commission, Ana Iti (Te Rarawa, Ngāi Tūpoto, Ngāti Here) references kauri logging, an industry that flourished in Te Tai Tokerau during the nineteenth century. Drawn using charcoal from burnt kauri timber, large saw teeth cut into the substructure of the gallery. Chain and metal pipes hint at the form of a marine crane, or how logs are bound for transport in waterways. The relationship of rākau to wai, or tree to water, reflects the kinship of kauri to tohorā, the Southern right whale. Both now face the threat of extinction, a sign of broader ecological devastation.

Ana Iti, research image 2025

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Tātai Tuarangi: Star Seeds, Sound Waves and Ceremonies gathers together practices attuned to the sky - to lunar time, celestial movement, seasonal transitions and the vastness of the cosmos.  By chance, the exhibition period of Tātai Tuarangi, crosses into the season of Matariki, the rising of the star cluster that signals both an astronomical event and a cultural observance grounded in remembrance, collective reflection and renewal.  The works of Albert Refiti, Ana Iti, Mara TK, Megan Brady and Saffronn Te Ratana unfold within this moment of heightened celestial awareness. Together, their offerings move between sound, installation, drawing, sculpture and research, to consider astral and planetary forces, rhythms and cycles, and human connection and relationships.

Presented at Gow Langsford Gallery’s City gallery, this exhibition brings together a considered selection of recent works from the gallery’s stable of represented artists. Spanning a diverse range of mediums, approaches and conceptual frameworks, the exhibition reflects the depth and dynamism of contemporary practice across Aotearoa.

Details to come

For his inaugural exhibition with Gow Langsford, Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui) presents Doorway to Night, a reimagining of the 1840s home of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, who lived overlooking Onehunga Beach and the Manukau Harbour near the gallery’s present site.

Te Ahikāroa is an exhibition celebrating the artists and stories of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection within the unique context of Ōtepoti Dunedin. Building from a new book of the same title, the exhibition uses artworks to explore ideas of arrival and departure; ways of occupying and experiencing land and the natural environment; buildings, structures and spaces of shelter and protection; and the sharing of stories through art. Acknowledging mana whenua and the concept of ahi kā as an expression of the continuous occupation of land through whakapapa, Te Ahikāroa offers audiences a rich sense of the unique location and history of this institution, the wide range of artists represented in the collection, and the artistic, cultural, and historic context of their works.

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RALPH HOTERE and BILL CULBERTP.R.O.P.1991 (detail). Corrugated iron and neon tube lights. Collection Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Reproduced by permission of the Hotere Foundation Trust and the Bill & Pip Culbert Trust

For four vibrant days, the Viaduct Events Centre transforms into New Zealand’s most exciting cultural destination. 60 leading galleries present bold, beautiful and unexpected works across painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, installation and more.

Whether you’re discovering art for the first time or adding to your collection, the Aotearoa Art Fair offers an inspiring, welcoming and unforgettable experience. It’s New Zealand’s best art day out

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Kurutai presents contemporary ceramics by Māori artists from Ngā Kaihanga Uku, Hineukurangi Collective, Te Atinga Contemporary Māori Visual Arts of Toi Māori Aotearoa, and Toi Ngāpuhi. These works will be exhibited across both the Art Fair and UKU Gallery, Victoria Park Market.

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Image Credit: Ashleigh Zimmerman, Hue, 2025.

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Lissy & Rudi Robinson-Cole are partners in art-making and in life. Their artworks explore mātauranga Māori and the importance of ancestral knowledge through crocheted woollen sculpture. To date the artists’ largest and most ambitious project has been Wharenui Harikoa (House of Joy), a full-size crocheted meeting house created in collaboration with whanau, community and international textile artists. Predominantly self-taught artists, together their unique crocheted sculptural creations make a unique and vibrant contribution to the conversations about the boundaries between craft, object art and conventional fine arts at present. Come hear the conversation as they talk with Nigel Borell about their art practice and future ambitions.

Hear from Lisa Reihana, one of Aotearoa’s most influential contemporary artists. Reihana will speak to her expansive multidisciplinary practice, which spans film, photography, and immersive installation. Internationally celebrated, her work explores the complexities of identity, history, and representation, particularly through the lens of Māori and Pacific perspectives, while interrogating colonial narratives and their ongoing impact.

At the 2026 Fair, Reihana presents new works from Māramatanga and Nomads of the Sea, alongside her landmark moving-image work in Pursuit of Venus [infected]—a globally acclaimed piece that reimagines historical encounters in the Pacific, and the significant installation ANZAC which welcomes visitors into the Viaduct Events Centre.

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Rangi Kipa, Ngahuia Harrison and Chevron Hassett join Zoe Black for a conversation exploring their individual practices, together with the diverse and layered roles each has alongside their creative mahi. Through the kōrero, these talented ringatoi will share insights into their work on display at the Fair and how this is intertwined with other projects they are currently undertaking, including placemaking and civic developments, academic research and public sculpture.

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Join Natasha Smith (Director Curatorial UAP), Judy Darragh (Artist), Reuben Paterson (Artist), and Nathan Pohio (Senior Curator, Māori Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki), as they delve into the world of public art.  

Drawing inspiration from the publication Public Art in Review, Volume I, 2019-2023, edited by Smith, and with reference to UAP’s annual Editorial, Best Public Art, in collaboration with Artsy, this practice leading panel will unpack key themes that underpin great works of public art in Aotearoa and around the globe. The conversation will range from themes relating to accessibility, site-specificity, engagement and timing, and it will reveal the new perspectives that public art can bring to our communities today.  

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He Kapu Ti Mau? A collective response to whanaungatanga. Celebrating 20 years revealing to light, sharing cups of tea and life.‍

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CREA (211B, Giudecca Island, Venice)

For two weeks between April and May 2026, Māori artists John Turi-Tiakitai, Kereama Taepa, Neke Moa, and Suzanne Tamaki will gather in Venice to wānanga (share knowledge), share space, and create, culminating in a series of powerful site-responsive activations during the 61st Venice Biennale Vernissage and public opening weekend (5–10 May).

Developed as a partnership between Te Tuhi and CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo on Venice's Giudecca Island, Paerangi: Venice sees the rōpū working collectively and individually across a variety of mediums. Emerging from the kaupapa of Paerangi: Waipawa (2024), presented by Te Tuhi in the small rural Central Hawke's Bay settlement of Waipawa, this international project continues a journey of artistic collaboration, cultural exchange, and community engagement.

Curator Karl Chitham says Paerangi refers to the seat of Ranginui or the horizon, a place of unlimited potential and change. For the artists, all visiting Venice and the Biennale for the first time, Paerangi: Venice offers a horizon of new possibilities, including the opportunity to exhibit work within the context of the world’s most extensive and high-profile art exhibition. The project also provides space to explore cultural exchange and community engagement that

1: John Turi-Tiakitai, Pākē Pōkinikini (detail), 2021. Harakeke, paru. Courtesy of the artist. | 2: Kereama Taepa, Whakaahuapai, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Jhana Millers. Photo by Emily Hartley-Skudder. | 3: Neke Moa, QUEEN!, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Season Aotearoa. 4 | Suzanne Tamaki, For Māori. For Sure, 2011. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Norm Heke.

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7:00pm – 8:30pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland

“I have reset my compass. I have started at the beginning again,” writes Witi Ihimaera (Te Whānau a Kai, Te Aitanga a Māhaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Porou) in his memoir Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer: I te Ao o te Reo, which traces his unique journey of learning his own language at the age of 80.

His year in the full-immersion course became an odyssey of profound self-discovery – of loss and shame, of reconnection and wairua, of fathers and teachers, kuia and friends.

He joins Stacey Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu) in conversation and with musical components provided by the talented Kingsley Spargo.

Don’t miss this moving session with our most acclaimed Māori writer reflecting on identity, belonging and finding himself anew in his ninth decade.

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10:00am – 11:00am, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland

“I have reset my compass. I have started at the beginning again,” writes Witi Ihimaera (Te Whānau a Kai, Te Aitanga a Māhaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Porou) in his memoir Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer: I te Ao o te Reo, which traces his unique journey of learning his own language at the age of 80.

His year in the full-immersion course became an odyssey of profound self-discovery – of loss and shame, of reconnection and wairua, of fathers and teachers, kuia and friends.

He joins Stacey Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu) in conversation and with musical components provided by the talented Kingsley Spargo.

Don’t miss this moving session with our most acclaimed Māori writer reflecting on identity, belonging and finding himself anew in his ninth decade.

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