Day 1: Create & Challenge
Day 2: Protest & Demonstrate
Day 3: Tour & Explore
The Future of Monuments
Today, many want to pull down war memorials as expressions of bad politics, especially those memorials that legitimise evil and injustice. Are there 'good' war memorials—and who decides? Can we make use of 'bad' war memorials? How do we understand miscellaneous contemporary war-memorial projects, like Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and Ground Zero in New York, or Weta and Te Papa's The Scale of War and Peter Jackson 'colourising' World War I footage? What form could future memorials take?
Everyday Mysticism: Artists Respond
8pm
Sculptor Glen Hayward’s practice brings the everyday into the gallery in profound and absurd ways. Reconsidering familiar objects is a concern shared by other artists. Join us as they discuss their practices and why they find commonplace objects compelling.
Urn (Live)
9pm
Sonic artists Thomas Carroll (Ngati Maru, Hauraki) and Rob Tyler respond to the themes of Matarau. Fusing taonga pūoro and modular synthesis, they incorporate rongoā plants as a modulation source, to create works inspired by Māori philosophy, cosmology and experimental noise music.
IMAGE Glen Hayward: Wish You Were Here City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi 2022. Photo Elias Rodriguez.
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PART OF
PRINCIPAL FUNDER
Sonia Snowden
Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi
Sonia began to weave in the early 1980s and was taught the art of whāriki by Emily Schuster of Te Arawa. Erenora Puketapu Hetet, Aromea Tahiwi, Nellie Frost and others contributed further to her development. As a long-serving weaving tutor at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Sonia has passed on the knowledge of te whare pora to several generations of weavers and is widely regarded for her teaching in marae around the country.
Sonia says that harakeke has been a ‘friend’ for many years and transformed by her hands into the finest quality tukutuku, whāriki, kākahu and kete whakairo. Today, ‘A Sonia Snowden Kete’ is uttered like a luxury brand name and her weaving is exhibited globally and held in museum collections.
A registered Toi Iho lifetime-licensed artist and member of Te Kāhui Whiritoi, the class of master Māori weavers, Sonia was acknowledged as the 2019 Ngā Tohu a Tā Kingi Ihaka award recipient by Creative New Zealand. With Pip Devonshire, Sonia was also the inaugural Ngā Aho Whenua Weavers in Residence at Toi Matarau Gallery in the Māoriland Film Hub, Otaki, an initiative that supports Māori weavers to create new work and engage with the community.
Recent exhibitions include:
Whiriwhiria: Tukua ki te Ao, Mahara Gallery, Waikanae (28 October 2023 – 21 January 2024)
Toi Māori Gallery, Aotearoa Art Fair, The Cloud, Auckland (2022)
Whiriwhiria, Toi Māori Gallery, Wellington (2022)
Te Puna Waiora: The Distinguished Weavers of Te Kāhui Whiritoi, Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery (2021-2022)
Tiaho Mai, Kiwibank Paraparaumu (2021)
Te Ringa Māhorahora, Toi Matarau Gallery, Māoriland Film Hub, Ōtaki (2021)
© 2023 Wellington Museum
