Open Day
teuru.org.nzJoin Te Uru for the opening of their first new exhibitions of 2025, on Saturday 15 February at 4pm.
Photosynthesisers: Women and the lens is an exhibition of photographs and videos by 41 women artists and collectives from Aotearoa and Australia, including fa`afafine, queer, and trans women, and those with ancestral ties to Aboriginal, Māori, and diasporic communities. Produced between the early 1960s and 2024 by four generations of artists, exhibited works collectively offer cross-cultural and intergenerational perspectives on the social, political, and cultural conditions that impelled their capture. The exhibition title draws on photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb, transform, and redistribute light energy.
The exhibition is accompanied by a reader, which is intended as a discursive adjunct, collating 30 texts produced between 1981 and 2024 by artists, curators, and writers from the region. The reader will be launched and first available at the exhibition opening.
Soft Spot explores the objects and rituals that make up a home via the practices of three artists: Claudia Kogachi, Ming Ranginui, and Erica van Zon. These artists engage with the home conceptually and formally, depicting household items and activities while working with craft modes often associated with domestic furnishings such as rug making, carpentry, and needlework.
Working across painting and rug making, Kogachi depicts scenarios both real and imagined, often featuring her loved ones. She invites the viewer into private spaces which are usually only observable within one’s own family. Van Zon’s practice similarly honours domestic activities, extending to commonly used household products, suburban scenes, and childhood memories. Ranginui’s fabric sculptures sit at the intersection of fantasy and reality. She draws on fairytales and aspirations of domesticity, evoking ballgowns and the Barbie Dreamhouse, while also highlighting the realities of poverty, unequal opportunities, and the dispossession of Indigenous people.
Join Te Uru for the opening of their first new exhibitions of 2025, on Saturday 15 February at 4pm.
Photosynthesisers: Women and the lens is an exhibition of photographs and videos by 41 women artists and collectives from Aotearoa and Australia, including fa`afafine, queer, and trans women, and those with ancestral ties to Aboriginal, Māori, and diasporic communities. Produced between the early 1960s and 2024 by four generations of artists, exhibited works collectively offer cross-cultural and intergenerational perspectives on the social, political, and cultural conditions that impelled their capture. The exhibition title draws on photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb, transform, and redistribute light energy.
The exhibition is accompanied by a reader, which is intended as a discursive adjunct, collating 30 texts produced between 1981 and 2024 by artists, curators, and writers from the region. The reader will be launched and first available at the exhibition opening.
Soft Spot explores the objects and rituals that make up a home via the practices of three artists: Claudia Kogachi, Ming Ranginui, and Erica van Zon. These artists engage with the home conceptually and formally, depicting household items and activities while working with craft modes often associated with domestic furnishings such as rug making, carpentry, and needlework.
Working across painting and rug making, Kogachi depicts scenarios both real and imagined, often featuring her loved ones. She invites the viewer into private spaces which are usually only observable within one’s own family. Van Zon’s practice similarly honours domestic activities, extending to commonly used household products, suburban scenes, and childhood memories. Ranginui’s fabric sculptures sit at the intersection of fantasy and reality. She draws on fairytales and aspirations of domesticity, evoking ballgowns and the Barbie Dreamhouse, while also highlighting the realities of poverty, unequal opportunities, and the dispossession of Indigenous people.
