Join Associate Indigenous curator contemporary art Megan Tamati-Quennell and Taarati Tairoa to discover the work of late artist Matt Pine and explore his F series or fortification series of works based on 3 significant Pā sites. Two of the installations were recreated specifically for the Swallowing Geography exhibition.

Swallowing Geography is an exhibition that explores our relationship with land and place. It is about how we absorb the landscape and our built environment and how we ingest or take in the histories of sites and places both explicit and oblique.

Megan Tamati-Quennell (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, and Waitaha Māori) is a leading curator and writer of modern & contemporary Māori & Indigenous art; a field she has worked in for three decades. Her research interests include Māori modernism, Mana Wāhine Māori (Māori women artists of the 1980s and 1990s), The Māori Internationals (urban, avant-garde Māori artists of the 1990s), international Indigenous art and Indigenous art curatorial praxis.

Taarati Taiaroa (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Kotimana) is an independent curator, researcher and artist based in Ōtepoti, Dunedin. She holds Masters degrees in both Fine Arts and Museums and Cultural Heritage. Her work over the past 10 years has focused on site-responsive sculpture, Māori art exhibition histories and the ethics of collaborative practice. Earlier this year through the support of Creative New Zealand, Taarati worked with Matt Pine to assist him to document and archive his practice before he passed. She is currently preparing the foundational research necessary to produce a significant exhibition and publication of his work. Taarati’s research is made possible with support from Creative New Zealand.