Archives: Events

Cheshire and Lett have crossed paths professionally on numerous occasions, collaborating on gallery and residential projects and continually exploring the question of how one might live when living with art.

Nat Cheshire and Michael Lett met properly in 2012, at Ponsonby Road’s Bambina Café, for what was to be the first of many conversations about a small cabin. Cheshire went on to become the youngest-ever winner of Home of the Year for their brooding, sculptural twin cabins on the Kaipara Harbour. In the years since, Cheshire and Lett have collaborated on a string of residential and gallery projects, while supporting art projects by Simon Denny, Michael Parekōwhai and Martin Creed. They make and fill homes for each other, and are continually exploring the question of how one might live when living with art. Their exchanges combine design rigour with a curatorial sensibility, shaping spaces that treat artwork as an essential part of everyday life.

Michael Lett is a New Zealand gallerist, collector, and director of Lett Thomas in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), which he founded in 2002. Known for a collaborative and adventurous approach to exhibition-making, he works with practitioners such as Anoushka Akel, Richard Frater, Kate Newby and Zac Langdon‑Pole, helping to shape contemporary Aotearoa art.

Cheshire is a design studio. It crafts small wooden tables, huge city districts, and the places, buildings, homes, bedrooms, objects, smells and experiences in between. Whether creating Britomart or renewing rural wharekai, that work is founded in the humility of revealing the extraordinary, not creating it. With collaborators from Piet Oudolf to Katie Lockhart, their studio of forty pursue this for clients and sites on six continents. Nat Cheshire leads that studio.

Nat Cheshire | Speaker
Michael Lett | Speaker 

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

What happens when art collecting becomes a shared pursuit? This conversation explores the rise of art collecting groups in Aotearoa, from friends pooling funds to buy their first works together, to established syndicates that are reshaping how art is discovered, supported, and enjoyed. Art collecting doesn’t have to be solitary, elite, or out of reach. In fact, some of the most interesting and impactful collections today are being built by groups with shared values, modest means, and a strong sense of connection. In this session, Phillida Perry (Kunst Art Group), Christine Fernyhough (Prospect Art Group – New Zealand’s first Art Group), and collector Anna Dickie (Artichoke Art Group) share first-hand insights into how collecting groups begin, how they function in practice, and why they matter.

Together, they discuss how art groups demystify the art world, lower barriers to entry, and make collecting more social, collaborative, and meaningful. The conversation also explores the wider ecosystem- how galleries benefit from working with groups, how artists thrive through early collective support, and why shared collecting can be a powerful way to build long-term engagement with art.

Moderated by Ben Plumbly (Art + Object), the session also offers valuable perspective on what happens later in a work’s life. Ben will share insights from the secondary market, including how works acquired by groups are viewed when they come to sale, what contributes to long-term value and provenance, and how thoughtful early collecting decisions can strengthen outcomes over time.

Whether you’re art-curious, new to collecting, or looking for a way to build culture and community with friends, this session will leave you inspired to collect with purpose and together.

Ben Plumbly | Moderator
Phillida Perry | Speaker
Anna Dickie| Speaker
Christine Fernyhough | Speaker 

Ben Plumbly is a founding and co-Director of Art+Object and has been the head of the art department since its inception in 2007. He has a first-class honours degree majoring in art history from Otago University and is New Zealand’s most experienced fine art auctioneer. Ben has managed the sale of the most prestigious art collections in New Zealand in recent years including: The Les and Milly Paris Collection, The Tim and Sherrah Francis Collection, The Frank and Lynn Corner Collection, The Ron Sang Collection, The Collection of Adrian Burr and Peter Tatham and many more. He has hammered down numerous record prices including the record-breaking Tim and Sherrah Francis collection which at the time resulted in the highest ever art auction total of $15.07 million dollars and the highest ever price realised for a New Zealand artist at auction.

Phillida Perry (Daughter Films) is a Tauranga Moana–based creative producer working across factual and scripted content. Her award-winning shorts Good Kunst (Misty Flicks, 2025 – Best Documentary & Best Director) and Breaking the Mould (Doc Edge, 2024) explore art, creative practice and female empowerment. Her producing credits Ms. INFORMATION (NZIFF, 2023) and Siouxsie & the Virus (Loading Docs, 2021) examine Aotearoa’s Covid-19 experience through the lens of pink-haired microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles. Phillida’s current slate includes a ten-year observational documentary following the second iteration of The Kunst Art Collective and feature adaptation of Tracey Slaughter’s novella The Longest Drink in Town.  She is also co-writing Unrecipied with Louise Thompson, a genre-blurring book celebrating food, story, art and occasion.

Anna Dickie co-founded the art group Artichoke in 2010, with seven other art enthusiasts based in London, building a collection of works by Aotearoa-born artists including Francis Upritchard, Shane Cotton, and Kelcy Taratoa. Her involvement sparked a transition from law into the arts. She went on to spend over a decade as content and editorial director at Ocula, growing it into a global art platform and interviewing leading figures such as Haegue Yang, Anthony Gormley, and Richard Armstrong. Anna holds a Master of Letters with Distinction in History of Art and Art-World Practice from Christie’s Education, London.

Christine Fernyhough is a philanthropist, sheep farmer, collector, and author whose many passions converge around a deep love of New Zealand and its people. Co-founder of Books in Homes with Alan Duff in 1994, she has dedicated decades to education and community, recognised with an ONZM and later a CNZM for her contributions. In 2004 she purchased Castle Hill Station in the Canterbury Alps, later sharing the story in her best-selling memoir The Road to Castle Hill. Her collecting life found expression through the Museum of the Everyday, established in 2015, and the 2019 publication Mid-Century Living: The Butterfly House Collection.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

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.  

Natasha Smith | Moderator
Reuben Paterson | Speaker 
Nathan Pōhio | Speaker
Judy Darragh | Speaker

Natasha Smith (Director Curatorial, UAP, Board Chair, Outer Space, Brisbane Australia) leads UAP’s global curators across Australia, China and the USA. Smith works internationally within the arts industry, specialising in curating and delivering art for public spaces. Skilled in Contemporary Art, Art Masterplanning, Creative Strategies, Artist Procurement and Artist Support, Smith has twenty years industry experience, working with leading international, high profile and emerging, curators and artists. Smith is Chair of the Board of Outer Space, a not-for-profit Contemporary Arts organisation in Brisbane, supporting critically engaged creative practice. 

Reuben Paterson (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi, Scottish) uses the transformative properties of light to reach beyond appearances and pry open the complex histories and tensions that sit just beneath the surface of all things. His art is made in celebration of exchange and encounter, hybridity and fluidity, spirituality and sexuality, and is especially attuned to the dynamics of queer identity and whakapapa-based modes of cultural knowledge. 

Nathan Pōhio (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Pākehā) (Kaitiaki Matua, Toi Māori | Senior Curator, Māori Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki) worked at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from sept 2002 – Jan 2022, in February 2022 he started work at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Pōhio is well known within the arts sector of Aotearoa New Zealand having researched, curated, and co-curated several significant Māori art exhibitions. Pōhio works to make visible the span of Māori and Māori art through research, writing, collecting, and curating at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. 

Judy Darragh (OMNZ) is an artist renowned for her brightly coloured sculptural assemblages, collage, video, and photography.  Darragh lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland where she has played a significant role in the development of ARTSPACE Aotearoa, artist-run spaces in Auckland, Teststrip and Cuckoo. She was a co-editor of Femisphere a publication supporting women’s art practices in Aotearoa. Judy is currently involved in Arts Makers Aotearoa, an arts advocacy group and has taught at secondary and tertiary levels and has mentored a wide range of artists. In 2002 Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand mounted the major survey exhibition Judy Darragh: So… you made it? Judy continues to exhibit extensively throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, and herworks are held in numerous public collections. 

This talk is presented by UAP.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

Join a panel of art insiders for a lively, game show–style quiz exploring the fascinating world of art and collecting. From surprising art history moments to insider knowledge from gallerists, curators and collectors, this fun and fast-paced session will test your eye, challenge what you think you know, and reveal the things they don’t teach you in art history.  Quizmaster Charles Ninow will be joined by contestants Season Gallerist Francis McWhannell, Artspace Deputy Director Bridget Riggir-Cuddy, and Art Enthusiast Andrew Wall.

Charles Ninow | Quiz Master
Francis McWhannell  | Speaker
Bridget Riggir-Cuddy | Speaker
Andrew Wall | Speaker

Charles Ninow is a dealer and promoter of New Zealand art. He operates an eponymous gallery in central Auckland which focuses on showing underrepresented aspects of our cultural landscape, including senior artists from the 20th century and contemporary practitioners. Having spent many years in the art auction industry, from time to time he provides advice to collectors on acquiring major paintings and the value of their collections.

Francis McWhannell is a writer, gallerist, and curator. He holds a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. He worked as a bookseller and auctioneer for several years before moving into art writing and curation. His first exhibition was a survey of the work of the University of Auckland’s Holloway Press held in 2014. He has written essays for shows at public and commercial galleries, has contributed to a range of arts and culture magazines and websites, and is the co-author of two books on historical photography. Since 2019, he has been curator of the Fletcher Trust Collection, a major private collection of Aotearoa art. In 2022, he and Jade Townsend opened Season, a commercial gallery based in central Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

Bridget Riggir-Cuddy is a writer and arts worker based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She is currently Kaiwhakahaere Tuarua Deputy Director at Artspace Aotearoa. Her writing is shaped by close proximity to cultural infrastructure and a labour-conscious attention to the social, institutional, and discursive conditions through which artistic value is produced.

Andrew Wall is an Art enthusiast, Aesthete, Agent, Advisor; collaborator and raconteur. Extensively studied and practiced here and abroad and an expert negotiator in subjective value. (Better known as scrap).

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

Caroline Vercoe | Moderator
Salome Tunuvasa | Speaker
Zhu Ohmu| Speaker
Tania Major | Speaker 

Caroline Vercoe, Associate Professor (Samoa, Aotearoa New Zealand) teaches Global Art Histories, Pacific Art Histories, and Contemporary Art in Aotearoa New Zealand at Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland. She specialises in contemporary Pacific art and performance art, with a particular interest in issues of race, gender and representation, and has been teaching, curating and researching in these areas for thirty years.

Zhu Ohmu is currently based between Auckland, Melbourne, and Paris. Her work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria as part of Melbourne Now (2023) and the Rigg Design Prize (2018). She has presented solo exhibitions at Shepparton Art Museum (2019), McLeaveyGallery (2025), MARS Gallery (2024), and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert (2022). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at Bunjil Place Gallery, Craft Victoria, JamFactory, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, McLeavey Gallery, and Sarjeant Gallery. She has also participated in the art fairs Melbourne Art Fair, Sydney Contemporary, and Aotearoa Art Fair. In 2024, Zhu was awarded an Emerging Artist Grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, which supported a three-month residency at POUSH in Paris. From 2025 to 2026, she undertook a five-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2026, Zhu will participate in Aotearoa Art Fair in New Zealand and Art Paris at the Grand Palais.

Tania Major is a Kokoberra artist and prominent figure from Kowanyama, Cape York in Far North Queensland, Australia. Major came to national prominence as an advocate and activist dedicated to improving the lives and educational outcomes of Cape York First Nation’s peoples. With a background in criminal justice, she was the youngest elected regional councillor in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and Youth Ambassador at the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. Major used her platform to draw national attention to the realities of life in remote communities and engage mainstream Australians in acknowledging and addressing the challenges facing these communities, particularly those in Cape York. In 2007, in recognition of her significant contributions Major was awarded Young Australian of the Year.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

What does it mean to collect art today, when everything feels faster, smaller, and more connected than ever? In contrast to collecting as a social activity or a focus on objects and design, this conversation centres on the individual collector – their eye, their instincts, and the deeply personal reasons we choose to live with art.

In this thoughtful and practical discussion, Good Oil Podcast Host Graeme Douglas, Gallerist Jhana Millers, Photographer Nicole England and Yu Mei Founder Jessie Wong, explore how to begin collecting with clarity and confidence and how that approach evolves over time. From choosing a first artwork to refining a collection years later, they reflect on how taste develops, how trust is built, and how collecting can be guided by curiosity rather than accumulation.

The conversation also considers how art brings a home to life: how living with works that carry meaning shapes atmosphere, memory, and daily experience. Rather than focusing on trends or scale, this talk offers insight into collecting with intention and choosing pieces that resonate, stand the test of time, and reflect who you are and what you value

Designed to speak equally to those just starting out and those with established collections, this session offers grounded advice, lived experience, and reassurance that collecting well isn’t about more, it’s about looking closely, choosing carefully, and living meaningfully with art.

Graeme Douglas | Moderator
Jhana Millers | Speaker
Nicole England | Speaker
Jessie Wong | Speaker 

Graeme Douglas produces a podcast, The Good Oil, dedicated to long form conversations with Aotearoa artists.  He is also an avid collector, motivated by a want to support the important role that artists play in reflecting who we are, and the unique experience that comes with living with art works.

Nicole England is a Melbourne-based architecture and interiors photographer who has worked with many of the industry’s top architects and designers, both in Australia and abroad. When Nicole isn’t shooting architecture and design for work, she can be found photographing personal projects – most of which have an architectural focus. The best known of these is Resident Dog, which grew to become a book that captured the hearts of dog and design lovers around the world. She has also just released a new book, Art in Residence.

Jessie Wong is the eponymous founder and owner of Yu Mei, a leather goods label with a focus on utility and regeneration. She started creating bags when she couldn’t find one that would carry everything she needed in a day, discovering that most were based on a blueprint of women’s role in society 100 years ago. Purses for love letters and lipstick are all very well and glamourous, but Jessie wanted one that could carry her laptop and lunchbox. And so Yu Mei was born, a brand that not only prioritises function and form, but looks beautiful doing it.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

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.

Zoe Black | Moderator
Rangi Kipa | Speaker
Chevron Hassett | Speaker
Ngahuia Harrison | Speaker 

Zoe Black (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine, Pākehā) is the Deputy Director of Objectspace, a public gallery dedicated to craft, design and architecture in Aotearoa New Zealand. She works across curatorial programming, community and international development, programme delivery and more. Black’s curatorial practice centres community development and advocating for critically under-represented craft and object art forms.

Rangi Kipa is a sculptor, carver and tā moko artist whose practice explores the articulation of cultural and tribal identity through the whakapapa of adornment and ethnographic taonga. Raised in Waitara in Taranaki, Kipa (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Tama ki te Tauihu) first trained as a carver at Maraeroa Carving School in Porirua in 1986, later completing a Master of Māori Visual Arts at Massey University in 1999. He has since forged a practice that investigates how customary Māori motifs, materials and techniques can be re-envisaged in a kōrero (conversation) between past and present.

Chevron Hassett (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Rongomaiwāhine, Ngāti Kahungunu, Pākehā) is an artist whose practice engages with sculpture, photography, and public installation. His work responds to the impact of urbanisation on Māori communities, informed by his own upbringing and community, grounded in the visual and spatial language of Māori design. Working with reclaimed materials and architectural references, Hassett reconfigures forms to speak to ideas of shelter, identity, and collective memory. His installations often function as living spaces of exchange, where mātauranga Māori and the urban experience intersect.

Ngahuia Harrison (Ngātiwai, Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Kahu o Torongare) is a lens-based artist who works with analogue and digital photography, as well as moving image. Her research-driven practice is embedded in the specificities of place and mana-i-te-whenua, and often draws out the political and cultural complexities of the sites she pictures.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

This panel explores how women collectors are shaping the cultural legacy of Aotearoa New Zealand through strategic, long-term approaches to art acquisition and how top-tier galleries and museum curators play a critical role in enabling those legacies. Moderated by leading advisor Catherine Asquith, this discussion will explore: what does an enduring art collection look like? Hear from Senior Curator of Global Contemporary Art Natasha Conland, Gallerist Sarah Hopkinson and leading arts patron and philanthropist Lady Dayle Mace on how women collectors think differently about legacy, and its place within the art market? What responsibilities or guidance do galleries and curators assume when working with such collectors, to offer stewardship, provenance, career support for artists and institutional pathways?

The discussion will demystify the gallery-curator-collector relationship, highlight women-led collecting strategies and provide practical take-aways for new and emerging collectors who aspire to build meaning and value over time.

Catherine Asquith | Moderator
Dayle Mayce | Speaker
Sarah Hopkinson | Speaker
Natasha Conland | Speaker 

Catherine Asquith is a consummate arts professional with over 28 years of experience in the Australian and international art markets. As founder of Melbourne-based Catherine Asquith Art Advisory, she specialises in collection management, private sales, and valuations, working closely with collectors to contextualise acquisitions through provenance, market position, and cultural significance. Her academic research sits at the intersection of art market studies, collecting practices, and gender — with a focus on the visibility of women within the art market. A sought-after speaker and commentator, Catherine has presented at art fairs and symposia on topics including collection strategy, market trends, and legacy planning.

Lady Dayle Mayce is a leading arts patron and philanthropist in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is Chair of the Edmiston Trust, which supports the acquisition of significant artworks for Auckland and is widely recognized for her long-term commitment to building cultural legacy through collecting and philanthropy. Dayle was a founding member of the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation and served 16 years while also chairing the Art Gallery Patrons group. She also had a 2 term tenure on the Te Papa Tongarewa Board setting up their Foundation and chairing the board until 2014.

Sarah Hopkinson has a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Art (Art History) from the University of Auckland (2005). Since graduating, Sarah has gained extensive experience working in the field of contemporary art, initially in academic institutions, as a curator of artist-run spaces, and more recently in leadership roles in commercial galleries. She was a founding member of Gambia Castle (2007-2029), co-Director of Hopkinson Mossman (2010-2019) and is the founding director of the gallery Coastal Signs (2021-).

Natasha Conland has over nineteen years’ experience developing exhibitions of contemporary art.  She writes for a number of contemporary arts journals and catalogues in the Asia Pacific region and co-edits Reading Room, a peer-reviewed journal of contemporary art published annually by the E.H. McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery. She has diverse interests which have focused over this period on art in public space and the dissemination of the historic avant-garde.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

For many people in Aotearoa New Zealand, landscape shapes how we experience art, space, and the places we live. Interior designer Rufus Knight and art appraiser and advisor Ben Ashley come together for a wide-ranging conversation about how landscape influences the way we view, design, and live with art.

Drawing on their lived experiences growing up in rural New Zealand, Rufus and Ben reflect on how an early relationship with land, light, and space continues to inform their creative and professional practices. For Rufus in particular, this connection has been central to his design approach and his long-standing engagement with art.

Using the work of Colin McCahon as a point of departure, the discussion considers how landscape-based narratives are shaped, framed, and carried into contemporary spaces. Rather than an art-historical lecture, this talk focuses on lived experience, how art informed by place is encountered in everyday environments, and what it can mean to live alongside works embedded with landscape and memory.

Ben Ashley | Moderator
Rufus Knight | Speaker 

Ben Ashley leads Aon’s Art & Collections valuation and risk advisory service across Asia Pacific and Aotearoa, working with private collectors, galleries, museums and cultural institutions. With 15 years’ experience in valuations, he provides appraisals for insurance, financial reporting and market assessment, and helps clients understand and manage environmental, security and market risks to their collections. Ben advises on practical strategies for preservation, protection and disaster resilience, structures insurance and indemnity solutions that support the long-term stewardship of significant works and collections, and works with galleries and museums on insurance placement and coverage.

Rufus Knight is the founder and director of Knight Associates, an interior design practice based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, working across cultural, commercial and residential projects in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. At Victoria University’s School of Architecture and Design in Wellington he undertook undergraduate studies in Interior Architecture after which he held an Associate position at award-winning practice Fearon Hay Architects. Following working terms abroad in Europe, notably for Vincent Van Duysen Architects in Antwerp, he opened his own Auckland-based studio in 2016 and completed a Master of Interior Architecture at Victoria University in 2024. His work has been published internationally and, in 2015, he was awarded the Designers Institute of New Zealand’s highest honour for Spatial Design, the Purple Pin. Recent notable projects include curating part of the New Zealand national pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, prestigious private residential addresses across New Zealand, and collaborating with established global brands such as Aēsop, Minotti, Les Mills, and Fisher & Paykel.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.

Not all collectors start with paintings. Increasingly, it’s the designed object, the chair, the vessel, the light that captures both the heart and the imagination.

This discussion, moderated by Objectspace Director Kim Paton brings together Jeweller Jasmin Scott, Furniture maker Grant Bailey and Gallerist Jade Townsend to explore the growing appreciation of design as collectible art. Together they’ll unpack what gives an object lasting value, from craftsmanship and material integrity to the stories and ideas behind each piece.

Expect a thoughtful, practical conversation about how to start collecting design (even on a modest budget) and how to see the art of the everyday object in a whole new light.

Kim Paton | Moderator
Jasmin Scott | Speaker
Grant Bailey | Speaker
Jade Townsend | Speaker 

Kim Paton has been the Director of Objectspace since 2015. Her interest is in interdisciplinary exhibition making across the fields of craft, design, architecture and contemporary art. Paton has curated and written extensively on object-based art forms including the 2023 exhibition The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa. Recent writing includes essays for Cheryl Lucas: Shaped by Schist and Scoria (Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2022) and David Straight: Locations of Interest (Objectspace, 2023). Paton is co-author up the upcoming book Hook Hand Heart Star: Warwick Freeman published by arnoldsche Art Publishers (2025).

Jasmin Scot is a jewellery designer whose fascination with materiality and form, combined with formal training, led her to launch independent brand Jasmin Sparrow. Offering sculptural and sentimental designs, her work encourages permanence.

Grant Bailey is Tāmaki Makaurau based designer/ maker. Whilst maintaining a bespoke furniture practice he has work extensively in film and tv and collaborated with artists, designers and architects both in Aotearoa and abroad.

Jade Townsend is a Whanganui-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based multi-disciplinary artist and curator working across painting, sculpture, and installation. Her practice critically explores identity, cultural hybridity, and material storytelling through the lens of her Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi), Pākehā and British heritage. Townsend holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting from Manchester Metropolitan University and has undertaken notable residencies at institutions including Slade School of Art (London), Red Gate Gallery (Beijing), Artspace Aotearoa and Objectspace (Tāmaki Makaurau), and Tylee Cottage in Whanganui.

She is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Season a dealer gallery, an Independent Director of RRA (Resale Royalties Aotearoa), and a Trustee of the Sarjeant Gallery Trust. Alongside her studio practice, Townsend contributes to governance and advocacy within Aotearoa’s arts sector, supporting artists and shaping conversations around cultural value, stewardship, and contemporary practice.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.