TENT is a new Art Weekend taking place throughout Aotearoa and online, presented by the team who deliver the Auckland Art Fair.

The inaugural edition of TENT will feature live exhibitions across the country and also online, and will take place from Thursday 4 – Sunday 7 November across New Zealand.

25+ galleries will present an off-site / pop-up exhibition, anywhere in Aotearoa New Zealand (but NOT in their own gallery space) – and at the same time, show the art online in specially created online viewing rooms.

Your first chance to see (and buy) the art will be in an online preview on Thursday 4 November. The live exhibitions will open in the different locations across the country, from Friday 5 – Sunday 7 November, with an accompanying programme of special events, curated walks, chances to meet artists and more, taking place over the three days, where Alert Levels allow.


TENT AS ART HOUSE & ACCESSIBLE CULTURAL CONSTRUCT

TENT pitching is what we do here.

Whether it’s Cook in the Coromandel whacking in a few poles and throwing an old sail over the telescope to protect his 1769 Transit of Mercury observation or the large marquee put up in 1840 on the front lawn of British Resident, James Busby’s Bay of Islands house, as crowds of local Māori and Pākehā gathered to discuss signing the Treaty of Waitangi, right from the get go, the relocatable, multi-purpose, often improvised tent has been that unassuming but practical structure able to accommodate us all.

Tents are a significant shape in our collective memory and myth. The pull of guy rope and snap of canvas sings to who we are and where we have been. From the conquest of Everest to the mud of Flanders, from protest embassy in the grounds of Parliament to pavilion at an agricultural machinery show, from Christmas holidays at the beach to character-building bush camps with the Girl Guides, from 21st birthday parties at the marae to cake stalls at the church fair, tents are about place. Our place. And the ordinary-extraordinary life, art and culture that goes on in and around them.

TENT: title concept and text by Mokopōpaki


Read more about the TENT Live exhibitions HERE

Keep up to date with the participating galleries and artists and where the exhibitions will be:

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Galleries

  • {Suite}
  • ARTIS Gallery
  • Black Door Gallery
  • Fine Arts, Sydney
  • Föenander Galleries
  • Fox Jensen/Fox Jensen McCrory
  • Gow Langsford Gallery
  • Robert Heald Gallery
  • Scott Lawrie Gallery
  • Michael Lett
  • Masterworks Gallery
  • TIM MELVILLE
  • Jhana Millers
  • mothermother
  • Page Galleries
  • Parnell Gallery
  • PAULNACHE
  • Laree Payne Gallery
  • play_station
  • RM Gallery and Project Space
  • SCAPE Public Art
  • Starkwhite
  • Sumer
  • Two Rooms
  • Visions

Date

  • Thu 04 Nov — Sun 07 Nov

Locations

  • Ōtautahi Christchurch
  • Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
  • Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay
  • Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
  • Whāingaroa Raglan & Kemureti Cambridge
  • AND
  • online at www.tent.art