Te Papa’s Toi Art galleries have just opened a suite of new exhibitions titled Tēnei Papa Tīoi / This Swaying Earth in which artists, makers and photographers express their relationships with the natural world – from past to present, through colour, form, materials, and sound. Gain fascinating insight with Contemporary Art Assistant Curator Hanahiva Rose, Decorative Art and Design Curator Justine Olsen and Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa as they introduce two of the new exhibitions in a floor talk.
Memory Spaces brings together artworks by Selina Ershadi and Pauline Rhodes to tell stories about place and memory. Ershadi reveals a landscape of memories through a film made during a family visit to Iran. Rhodes’ major installation work Extensum/Extensor considers how we move through and engage with different environments.
This Natural World demonstrates how artists and makers work with nature – using forms and materials to connect with knowledge and stories held in the natural world around us. Through jewellery, sculpture, film and weaving, we see artists and makers pay close attention to their surroundings, finding beauty and usefulness in nature.
This is one of two curator-led floor talks offered to the Friends of Te Papa in Tēnei Papa Tīoi / This Swaying Earth. The other will be held on Wednesday 15 November and can be booked here: Floor Talk: Arranging Nature and Wayne Barrar: From the Glass Archive – Friends of Te Papa
Hanahiva Rose is the Assistant Curator Art at Te Papa. Her research explores whakapapa, memory and imagination, as they are expressed in contemporary art.
Justine Olsen is Curator of Decorative art and design at Te Papa. She specialises in contemporary New Zealand craft and design, modernism, and its antecedents. Currently she is researching and writing towards a book on the Walter Cook collection held at Te Papa.
Image Credits: Above: Selina Ershadi, still from Amator, 2019. Te Papa (2023-0006-1) Right: Whakatipu (rain cape) (detail), 1850-1900, maker unknown. Purchased 1904. Te Papa (ME000315)