Sonya Korohina on the Reopening of Toi Tauranga Art Gallery

After years of redevelopment, the reopening of Toi Tauranga Art Gallery marks a transformative moment for Tauranga Moana, restoring a space for art, culture, and community at the heart of the city. We spoke with Gallery Director Sonya Korohina about how the gallery’s renewal reflects its role in connecting people, honouring place, fostering dialogue, and inspiring curiosity across generations.

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After several years of transformation, what does it mean to you, and to Tauranga, to see Toi Tauranga Art Gallery open its doors again?

It means everything. I don’t think we (our Board, staff, and community) had realised how much we missed having the Gallery as part of our everyday — as art, culture and creativity should be.

The gallery now sits at the heart of Te Manawataki o Te Papa, the city’s “beating heart.” How does this connection shape the way you think about the gallery’s role in the community?

Te Manawataki o Te Papa is a bold and visionary capital development project, that by 2028 will realise a museum and library, joining the Gallery and Baycourt Community and Performing Arts Centre.  Together through interdisciplinary practice, we will weave together stories, shared histories, stimulating thought, and giving pulse, mauri, to our community.

During the closure, you had time to rethink not just the building, but the way the gallery works. How has that period changed your vision for what an art gallery can be today?

The closure gave us a rare opportunity to breathe, step back and ask, how can we be more responsive, more relevant, more welcoming?

This has resulted in a number of shifts, particularly with bringing a sense of place and situating the gallery in Tauranga Moana — the design and materiality of our new entrance and refreshed brand identity developed in consultation with our Māori Advisory Committee Te Kāhu ō Hinewa, and of course our exhibition and experience programmes. As the only public art gallery in the region, we have to be something to everyone, presenting a range of art historical, artist commission, collection, group, touring, and contemporary shows across over a 24 month cycle. We knew we wanted our reopening programme to honour our place in Aotearoa and indeed the Pacific.

Rawe, the reopening exhibition, brings together artists who speak deeply to place, identity, and future generations. What conversations do you hope their works will spark?

I overheard two teenagers musing why the Labubu (titled Looks Like All We’ve Got is Each Other) created by Tyrone Te Waa (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) and Matthew Harris (Akoorie, European) was wearing a possum skin bikini. They discussed how in Aotearoa possums are a pest that kill native birds but in Australia they are a protected species. They then chatted about what it would mean if the Labubu was to be exhibited in Australia (as it actually has been) and how the possum bikini would be perceived differently.

Together these teenagers tapped into a conversation between two artists, across national borders. Overhearing this kōrero and many more is what it’s all about.

Toi Tauranga Art Gallery has always been a place of learning and discovery. How do you see the gallery nurturing curiosity and creative confidence, especially for young people?

Our vision is ‘lifelong experiences with art’, so we programme for our smallest to our most senior visitors. For the latter audience we’ve really amplified accessibility tools — more seating,  large wall text, magnifiers and extended exhibition audio. For our tamariki, we’ve developed a 32 page ‘Curiosity Guide’ full of activities to aid learning and exploring within the gallery. And hot right now is the Wonderboxes exhibition, sited at child height and installed with Closet History, an exhibition by husband and wife Tāwhai Rickard (Ngāti Porou) and Tania Lewis-Rickard (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tūhoe). We also have a new Creativity Centre that is for our popular schools, holiday and weekend activity programmes.