At the Fair Category: Artist Talks

Parallel Worlds, a new imagination on internationality

Thursday 25 February 3-4:30pm

If we think about international links, what is the imagination of Aotearoa in the rest of the world, and what is now expected from a diverse range of practices and knowledge coming out of Aotearoa? What are the demands put on Indigenous work, both by public organisations, as well as by individual collectors? What is needed to provide more manaakitanga for these works in frameworks that are seemingly not designed to house them?

The panel will be led by Ioana Gordon-Smith with Tim Melville, Ema Tavola and Kimberley Moulton.

Ioana Gordon-Smith

Ioana Gordon-Smith is an arts writer and Curator Māori Pacific at Pātaka Art + Museum. Prior to this role, she was the inaugural Curator at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery.  Ioana has also worked as Curator at Objectspace, a gallery dedicated to craft, design and applied arts, and as the inaugural Education Intern for Artspace, New Zealand, a role which came about through a partnership between Tautai Contemporary Arts Trust and Artspace to increase the accessibility of Artspace to its nearby Pacific audiences.

In addition to her curatorial work, Ioana also contributes regularly to a number of catalogues as well as magazines and journals, such as Art New Zealand, Art News New Zealand and un Magazine. She was the New Zealand-based project manager for the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 and has been a regular Pasifika correspondent for Radio New Zealand.

She plays an important role in community arts as a trustee for the community-focused art collective Whau The People. Though her areas of interest span a broad range of disciplines, what is consistent throughout is a curatorial process that prioritises a close working relationship with artists and arts communities.

Ioana is the Assistant Curator of Yuki Kihara, Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022.

Tim Melville

Tim Melville (Te Arawa, Te Atiawa) returned to Aotearoa in 2005 after 20 years in London. While there he completed a career-changing Art History degree and opened his Auckland gallery in 2007.

He is best known, perhaps, for his representation of emerging New Zealand artists, but his project has also introduced artists from Australian Aboriginal communities to New Zealand collectors and curators. He sees resonance in shared attitudes toward country in Australia and whenua in Aotearoa and he is interested in exploring their meeting points.

As one of the few Maori gallerists in the commercial art world Tim feels a particular responsibility to translate the values imbued within indigenous artwork for his gallery’s predominantly European audience of friends and supporters. This kaupapa is supported by a business model whose integral values include aroha and manaakitanga.

Tim Melville’s stand at the 2021 Auckland Art Fair presents work by Joe Sheehan (NZ) and Alberto Garcia-Alvarez (Spain / NZ) alongside Aboriginal artists George Ward Tjungurrayi and Nola Campbell (Warakurna Artists, WA), Rammey & Kathy Ramsay (Warmun Art, WA) and Nonggirrnga Marawili (Buku-Larnggay Mulka, NT).

Ema Tavola

Ema Tavola is an independent artist-curator based in South Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Tavola’s curatorial concerns are grounded in the opportunities for contemporary art to engage grassroots audiences, shift representational politics and archive the Pacific diaspora experience. Tavola has worked in galleries and museums throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and is committed to curating as a mechanism for social inclusion, centralising Pacific ways of seeing and exhibition making as a mode of decolonisation. She opened her independent gallery, Vunilagi Vou in 2019, which relocated from a commercial premises to her converted garage as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Kimberley Moulton

Kimberley Moulton is a proud Yorta Yorta woman, curator and writer and Senior Curator South Eastern Aboriginal Collections at Museums Victoria. She has worked in curatorial roles at Melbourne Museum for over ten years (Bunjilaka Project Officer and Curator 2008-2015) and has curated over sixteen exhibitions with the Victorian Koorie Community at Museums Victoria. She was an assistant curator for the permanent First Peoples Exhibition at Melbourne Museum from 2009-2013. In her practice she works with knowledges, histories and futures at the intersection of historical collections and contemporary art and making. She is also interested in anti-colonial curatorial methodology and First Nations representation and access in museums and galleries.

How and When?

Friday 26 February 3-4:30pm

Thinking through artistic and curatorial examples of Aotearoa based exhibitions, what are the examples we need to learn from more and better. If then, how, and when do we need to look at new ways of presenting, representing ‘new’ art from Aotearoa? What are the systems required and are the uses of our institutions still relevant?

The panel will be led by Remco de Blaaij with Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua, Ngahiraka Mason, Nigel Borell and Ashleigh Taupaki.

Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua

Cameron (Sa Matamua; Sa Muagututi’a; Guangdong) is a writer, curator and educator based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Prior to their appointment Cameron engaged with St Paul St Gallery as an independent researcher within the 2018 Symposium, Ko au te au/I am the Ocean, and as co-curator with Director, Charlotte Huddleston on the 2019 two-part exhibition project Two Oceans at Once, shown at St Paul St, and The Physics Room, Ōtautahi. They have recently completed a PGDipFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts where they were also employed as a graduate teaching assistant. Their writing has appeared both nationally and internationally, most recently at Art Basel Hong Kong and Karma Gallery, NYC. Cameron was the 2017 Education Intern at Artspace Aotearoa, working across both curatorial and public programming with a focus on emergent and Moana artists and thinkers. ⁣

Ngahiraka Mason

Ngahiraka Mason (Tūhoe, Te Arawa, and Ngāti Pango) is an independent curator, critic, and visual historian with research and curatorial interests in the material culture and histories of Polynesian peoples and community relationships with museums and collections. Mason is the former Indigenous Curator, Māori Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her exhibitions and publications focus on historical, modern, and contemporary art. Recent projects include Wananga|Wanana (2019) at Bishop Museum, Honolulu; Honolulu Biennial: Middle of Now/Here, the inaugural Honolulu Biennial (2017) and the international touring exhibition Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand (2014–16). She has published in American Quarterly(2020), and presented at the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) conference (2019) and at NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020). Mason is a founding trustee of the Wairau Māori Art Gallery Charitable Trust, Whangārei, and a former trustee on the Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust. Mason lives and works in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.

Nigel Borell

Nigel Borell (b. 1973) is of Pirirakau, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Whakatōhea tribal descent. He is a curator, writer, and artist specialising in Māori art in both customary and contemporary fields of research. Recent curatorial projects include co-curating with Zara Stanhope Moa Hunter Fashions by Areta Wilkinson, for 9th Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2018) and The Māori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand, to deYoung Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco (2017). Current projects include the curatorium to Histōrias Indīgenas- Indigenous Histories at Museu de Art de (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil (2023). And the large survey exhibition and publication Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art currently on display at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2021), where he was the Curator Māori art from 2015-2020. Forthcoming collaborative projects include working with fellow curator Megan Tamati-Quennell in the development of Nation to Nation (working title) – a major travelling Indigenous art exhibition for 2023 – 2024 which includes the development of an Indigenous reader and exhibition catalogue.

Borell participated in the First Nations Indigenous Curators Exchange programme (2015-2017) a partnership initiative of Creative New Zealand, Canada Council for the Arts and Australia Council for the Arts. Recent writing projects include, a contributing essay to Becoming our Future, a new publication engaged in the discourse of Indigenous curatorial practice from New Zealand, Canada and Australia (2020).

Ashleigh Taupaki

Ashleigh Taupaki (Ngāti Hako, Samoan) is an artist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work draws on ideas of oral tradition, and Māori concepts of place-making as it pertains to self-identification and ancestral association. Having completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, Taupaki hopes to continue creating works that consider the histories of people and place, and enables Māori voices in places where they were once excluded. Ashleigh has been commissioned to make a new work for Projects 2021 at the Art Fair, with support from Yu Mei.  Her work will be exhibited at the new Yu Mei store in Newmarket (opening Feb 2021).

Collecting anew

Saturday 27 February 3-4.30pm

Who and what are the new collectors? Should we talk simply about a new generation of collectors, or do we see a shift of focus in the attention of new collectors? What are the social motivations for collectors to collect and do they apply a more ‘ethical’ and political approach in their work? How do artists develop new ways of making a market for themselves, one that considers new infrastructures beyond galleries alone?

The panel will be led by Remco de Blaaij with Hannah Chiaroni Clarke, Nikau Hindin, Jennie Hu and Nomadic Art Gallery (prerecorded response).

Nikau Hindin

Nikau Hindin (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is a contemporary artist and with a revivalist agenda to reawaken Māori aute. She completed her conjoint BA in Māori studies and Media studies and Honours in Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. In 2013, she did an exchange at the University of Hawai’i (UH) where she first learned about Māori aute. In 2014 she was part of the crew on Hōkūle’a from Auckland to Golden Bay. She is the recipient of the Māori Battalion VC scholarship and the Sir Hugh Kawharu award which enabled her access to study the Auckland War Memorial Museum collection. She returned to the UH, on a Graduate Assistant Scholarship, where she learned from Master knowledge holders. In October 2018, she completed a deep sea voyage from Norfolk Island to Tāmaki Makaurau. Nikau completed her Masters of Creative Practice at Toihoukura Art School. This year Nikau showed at the Auckland Art Fair, Te Uru Contemporary Gallery, Millers O’Brien Gallery. She has been featured recently in three shows around Aotearoa New Zealand: Native Voices at Tairawhiti Museum, Te Rangi Haupapa: A Woven History at Tauranga Art Gallery and Tākiri: An Unfurling at the New Zealand Maritime Museum.

The Nomadic Art Gallery

The Nomadic Art Gallery is an art gallery on wheels that is travelling the whole of New Zealand during the year 2020. With a total of ten hosted exhibitions, reaching each corner of New Zealand and involving more than fifty artists, this art gallery aims to challenge people’s perception of art.

This project is run by Arthur Buerms and Eugénie, a dynamic couple from Belgium with a strong passion for art and entrepreneurship. Arthur Buerms, the brain behind the exhibitions, is a freelance art curator with a legal background and specialization in copyright law. Whether in art or in law, Buerms has always been driven by the fine boundaries in art: what constitutes art? And in how far is art influenced by its environment? Also intrigued by the social discrepancies and controversies within the art scene, the Nomadic Art Gallery strives to bridge the gap between artists and the often-assumed and so-called “elite” by bringing art to the public.

Friday 3 March 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, mothermother
STAND C5

Join mothermother and special guest Becky Hemus in conversation at 2:00pm.

This year mothermother is hauling in a long-table titled simply ‘The Table’, where you are invited to pull up a chair and take in the works as you would at a friend’s dining room table. Just as mothermother was founded on an ethos of manaakitanga, The Table conjures images of community, home, sharing of kai, connection, ritual, and belonging.

Becky Hemus is a writer, curator, art historian, and self-proclaimed art groupie, Becky is the Editorial Director at both Art News Aotearoa and The Art Paper. She also co-founded May Fair, an alternative art fair that focussed on showcasing artists who sit outside the commercial gallery context.

Saturday March 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, mothermother
STAND C5

Join mothermother and special guest Judy Darragh in conversation at 2:00pm.

This year mothermother is hauling in a long-table titled simply ‘The Table’, where you are invited to pull up a chair and take in the works as you would at a friend’s dining room table. Just as mothermother was founded on an ethos of manaakitanga, The Table conjures images of community, home, sharing of kai, connection, ritual, and belonging.

Judy Darragh is an artist, writer, speaker, teacher, and activist, Judy has played a significant role in the development of several ground-breaking industry milestones (Artspace, Teststrip, Cuckoo, Femisphere, and Arts Makers Aotearoa). Her work displays a fondness for everyday objects and plays with our views of material consumerism.

Sunday March 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, mothermother
STAND C5

Join mothermother and special guests Nina Dyer and Fiona Jack in conversation at 2:00pm.

This year mothermother is hauling in a long-table titled simply ‘The Table’, where you are invited to pull up a chair and take in the works as you would at a friend’s dining room table. Just as mothermother was founded on an ethos of manaakitanga, The Table conjures images of community, home, sharing of kai, connection, ritual, and belonging.

Nina Dyer is a curator and art writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She is currently Exhibition Curator and Manager at Depot Artspace and a collective member of artist-run space RM Gallery. Independent of these roles, Dyer has curated for Ilam Campus Gallery and MEANWHILE, with writing published by The Art Paper, Aotearoa Digital Arts Network and local galleries.

Fiona Jack is an atist, designer, teacher, social activist, and Head of School Te Waka Tūhura Elam School of Fine Arts and Design, Fiona’s practice spans both a widely collaborative, public space and a quiet, intimate relationship with domestic clayware. “I enjoy the details of how these vessels function – how the rim of a cup is shaped for the lip to rest on, their engagement with the body. Shaping clay and vitrifying it through the heat of a wood-fueled fire is a process rooted in community, social history, and the earth.”

Thursday 2 March 2:00pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, mothermother
STAND C5

Join mothermother and special guest Dina Jezdic in conversation at 2:00pm.

This year mothermother is hauling in a long-table titled simply ‘The Table’, where you are invited to pull up a chair and take in the works as you would at a friend’s dining room table. Just as mothermother was founded on an ethos of manaakitanga, The Table conjures images of community, home, sharing of kai, connection, ritual, and belonging.

Dina Jezdic is an independent curator, Toipoto Director, and art writer, Dina is pursuing a doctorate at UofA focusing on collaborative autoethnography, decolonising curatorial practice and contemporary indigenous performance art. She co-curated Te Whāinga: A Culture Lab on Civility in partnership with Smithsonian Asian-Pacific American Center and is the inaugural Obama Foundation Fellow: Asia-Pacific region.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 12:30pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, PAULNACHE
STAND C7

Glen Hayward’s work blends carving, painting and conceptualism to snare the viewer in a standoff around what is real or illusionary, art or not art, profound or absurd.

Featured at the Fair for its Auckland debut, is a new body of work based on Hayward’s travel to some of the world’s major galleries. Rather than profound art experiences, Hayward walked away with bad photographs of fixings such as the gold drinking fountains and handrails from the Guggenheim Museum, and the ceiling pipes in Walter De Maria’s New York Earth Room. He later remakes these objects out of wood in his Whanganui studio. The project put a new twist on Hayward’s interest in redeploying the objects that are encountered in and/or put to work in the art gallery, which allows him to tease out the behaviours and experiences they engender, and then question how this all intersects with ‘the real world’. These sculptures are neither (or both) here or there, functional or dysfunctional.

Hayward’s work constantly forces us to look and think again. It offers a kind of everyday mysticism, challenging us to trust in or doubt the validity of the objects or experiences that we encounter in the here and now—especially inside the art gallery but also in the world beyond it.

We warmly welcome you to join in the conversation with artist Glen Hayward and City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi curator Aaron Lister, following the exhibition and publication  ‘Wish You Were Here’, supported by Chartwell Trust and City Gallery Wellington Foundation.

Friday 3 March at 2:30pm
Aotearoa Art Fair, Tim Melville 
STAND A12

Tim Melville (Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Atiawa) is one of the few gallerists in New Zealand to present the work of Aboriginal artists and he has always found this surprising.

“They’re our cousins across the water, they’re physically close, and we have so many shared attitudes towards what we in Aotearoa know as ‘whenua’ and they in Ahitereiria know as ‘country’ … I’m interested in teasing out our meeting points.”

Join Tim at his stand to hear him speak about his interest in Aboriginal art, where that interest began, and to get an overview of the works he has chosen for this year’s Fair.