Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (Pākehā) is an award-winning artist and author based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her practice weaves together interests in national identity, public art, new technologies, and the power dynamics controlling knowledge and information. Recent works have examined how shifts in technology impact on the creation and preservation of culture, and how modern-day copying processes can be used to digitally recover or preserve pieces of lost or forgotten cultural items.
She is currently Co-Director of Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand: a research initiative based at Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University Wellington, that seeks to recover Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public Art Heritage, one work at a time. Recent projects and publications include Bledisloe Bebop (Auckland Live Digital Stage, Aotea Square, 2020), The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour (City Gallery Wellington, 2018), WANTED: The search for the modernist murals of E. Mervyn Taylor (Massey Press, 2018), and Te Ika-a-Akoranga (various locations, 2014-2019).
She holds a PhD (Fine Arts) from Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University Wellington and a scuba diving qualification (with deep-dive specialty) which she gained in order to hold a major trans-national internet cable. In 2009 she was named as one of the 25 Most Powerful People in Technology by the New Zealand National Business Review due to her work in the Copyright field, in which she continues to dabble. She has completed numerous commissions and her work has been shown in Australia, Japan, Germany, the US, throughout Aotearoa, and mid-air as part of Air New Zealand’s in-flight entertainment programme (Destination Pioneer City, 2012).
