Information about events, exhibtions, workshops and more at Toi Pōneke.
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre are pleased to announce that Lîm Kado has been awarded the 2025 Visual Artist Residency.
What is the connection between sugar, colonisation, global trade and climate change?
Azucar/Sugar is an explorative gallery experience that uses sugar sculptures, videos and digital art to trace how European and US conquest terraformed the environment from a living entity that encompassed the living spirits of the land, water, plants, animals and humans into an inert repository of resources to be harvested and harnessed for profit. Azucar/Sugar is the latest installation from With Lime, the long-standing collaboration between William Franco and Miki Seifert.
The Toi Pōneke/NZSM Sonic Artist-in-Residence is a 3-month part-time position (.6FTE) for an established Wellington-based sonic artist to develop a body of work that may include performances, installations, workshops and so forth. The position is funded by Toi Pōneke, with the NZSM and Toi Pōneke as host organisations. A studio space is provided by Toi Pōneke for the duration of the residency, and the Residency will culminate in a 4-week exhibition in March/April 2026 at Toi Pōneke Gallery.
Join us on Wednesday evenings for an intimate gathering with the artists behind Azúcar/Sugar. Meet artists William Franco and Miki Seifert and engage in fascinating discussions about their inspirations, techniques, and personal connections to the sweet subject matter that shapes this unique installation.
Wellington City Council, through Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, is proud to announce a groundbreaking partnership with the internationally acclaimed theatre and film company THE CONCH, launching the city’s first dedicated Pasifika arts residency programme.
In the third of three artist’s talks about Azúcar/Sugar, the latest installation from With Lime, join Dr Miki Seifert and Dr Arini Loader at ‘The Colonisers’ Banquet Table’. Dr Seifert will talk about how sugar was transformed from an exotic luxury item into a global ubiquity. Dr Loader will use te reo Māori as a gateway to talk about sugar’s associated health and societal issues along with alcohol and other colonial introductions.
Artists Katy Cottrell and Rick Allender explore the connection between land and sea through intricate works crafted from natural wood veneers.
Marquetry is the art of ‘drawing’ with wood veneers, cutting intricate jigsaws of imagery and inlaying in, or onto timbers. In three hours have a go at exploring the different veneers, get to know the chisels and knives, and create your own ‘take home’ block (or coaster) having discovered the fundamentals to take it further.
Join artist Katy Cottrell as she chats with academic researcher Matteo Collina and director of the Victoria University Coastal Ecology Lab – Alice Rogers. Alice and Matteo will talk about their work with marine reserves from a scientific perspective and how this has inspired the artworks by Katy Cottrell and Rick Allender for their exhibition Taputeranga: Above and Below.
In the second of three artist’s talks about Azúcar/Sugar, the latest installation from With Lime, hear about Dr William Franco’s journey from travelling in Mexico to learn how to make Mexican sugar skulls for Dia de Muertos to exploring the connection between sugar and colonisation of the Americas to expanding the boundaries of this traditional method of sugar art.
In the first of three artist’s talks about Azúcar/Sugar, the latest installation from With Lime, learn how Dr Miki Seifert used the concept of Wunderkammer to explore the connection between sugar, colonisation, global trade and climate change.
Dr Seifert will be joined by Dr April Henderson who will talk about the impact of sugar, colonisation and global trade in the Pacific.
Join us at Toi Pōneke for our second Wāhine Wānanga for artists. A presentation from wāhine toa Lynell Tuffery Huria about copyright and intellectual property in Te Āo Toi Māori (The World of Māori Arts).
Kieran Monaghan will be in the gallery performing with vegetable.machine.animal 'trio', which involves plants, a synthesiser and live drumming. Joining him on keyboards and fagufagu will be GUEST recording artist Andrew Faleatua.
Kieran Monaghan will be in the gallery performing with vegetable.machine.animal 'trio', which involves plants, a synthesiser and live drumming. Joining him on taonga pūoro will be Ruby Solly. Solly appears on the album GUEST.
Join us for this talk facilitated by K Monaghan, Assoc. Prof. Dr Julie Deslippe - from Victoria University School of Biological Sciences and Dr Eli Elinoff - from Victoria University School of Social and Cultural Studies. This discussion will touch on interesting studies around human and non human life patterns, interspecies connections, living with plant and fungi rather than alongside.
Kieran Monaghan will be in the gallery performing with vegetable.machine.animal 'trio', which involves plants, a synthesiser and live drumming. Joining him on electronics, keyboards, domestic objects will be GUEST recording artist Chrissie Butler (DSLB)
Sonic artist Kieran Monaghan presents GUEST, an interdisciplinary exhibition of sound, image and organic matter, which offers up a sonic practice for the Anthropocene. This body of work explores a practice that places the ‘human’ not at the centre, but as an ongoing active collaborator. Working as a member of the non-human/tech/human trio, vegetable.machine.animal, Monaghan makes space where the voice of the ‘Other’ is amplified and essential to the voice of the ‘Whole’.
Te Whē Wānanga is an empowering, transformational wānanga that explores the Whakapapa of Sound & Vibration through the lens of Māori cosmology and traditional music practices used for art, healing, health and community.
Facilitated by internationally renowned artist and Tohunga o Te Whē, Māmā Mihirangi, this wānanga offers a sacred, creative space for participants to experience the vibrational and ancestral power of music as a conscious and expressive force.
This panel gathers a remarkable group of artists, and academics. Rooted in creative practice, scholarship, and lived experience, each speaker brings a perspective that challenges dominant narratives and illuminates alternative ways of seeing, knowing, and belonging. Together, they explore how voice, vision, and artistic expression become powerful tools for personal and collective change.
This May, Toi Pōneke Gallery presents a compelling mother-son exhibition that reclaims vision and voice through the powerful mediums of painting and photography. Featuring the evocative work of Ashraf Pirnia and Pedram Pirnia, this showcase dives into deep introspection and feminist resistance, amplifying silenced voices and uncovering layers of identity, truth, and transformation.
A relaxing class of meditative slow stitching whilst learning about the health benefits of creativity. Create a small improv quilt by hand and learn some big stitch hand quilting.
Toi Pōneke is calling for proposals from Wellington-based artists for our 2025 Visual Arts Residency.
The aim of this residency is to support a Wellington-based visual artist or small group of Wellington-based visual artists to develop their individual or collective practice and provide them with resources to dedicate themselves full time to their practice for a period of 12 weeks.
Meet ‘Les Grandes Dames’ - the artists of Creating Connections – Anna Hicks, Anna Prussing, Catherine Croucher, Gael O‘Donnell, Jill Bowman, Katherine Morrison and Marilyn Daly.
Les Grandes Dames will be facilitating a tour of the Creating Connections exhibition. They will discuss their own work and describe some of the techniques they used to make these textiles.
Toi Pōneke presents the first in our series of Wāhine Wānanga. Join us for a kai and korero in a wāhine focussed space, with a presentation by wāhine toa Tu Chapman. Tu is an advocate for change, a proven thought leader on issues relating to applied indigenous approaches in Te Āo Māori, Tikanga Māori, Social Justice and Wellbeing & Development.
Come and learn a technique for hand stitching onto wool or linen to express your protest thoughts. Katherine and Philippa will show you how to embroider with embroidery threads to get your ideas across. Techniques for marking designs, sewing and washing will be taught. You will come away with a new technique, new ideas and hopefully inspiration!
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre are pleased to announce that choreographers Stela Dara Resendre Albuquerque and Ella Williams have been awarded the 2025 Dance Development Residency.
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre are pleased to announce that Stela Dara Resendre Albuquerque has been awarded the 2025 Emerging Producer Residency.
We are eight artists with varied creative practices who came together because of our shared interest in textiles. We all wanted to develop as artists, and honest but encouraging critique from other group members has allowed us all to progress our work in varied ways.
Are you eager to learn Te Reo Māori with a dynamic and interactive facilitator?
7 week online program starting in March 2025
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre and Pop Film are delighted to announce Wellington writer Esteban Jaramillo who has been selected as the 2025 Write Room Screenwriter in Residence with his project Vicio.
Join sisters artist Hannah Schickedanz and poet Jessica Arcus for a facilitated talk about their collaborative exhibition Human. Nature.
Toi Pōneke Gallery is proud to present Human. Nature., an immersive debut exhibition by sisters Hannah Schickedanz and poet Jessica Arcus. This deeply personal collaboration combines painting, sculpture, and poetry to create a soothing balm for the overstimulation of modern life.
On Sat Feb 1, we’re running free drawing, collage, writing and badge making stations inspired by the lo-fi, alternative and activist tradition of zinemaking.
On Sat Feb 1 join us for an Art Market, Open Studios, Public Programs and Live Music by local artists at Toi Pōneke Arts Centre
A team of local creatives from Wellington's zine scene have created illustrated portraits, historical protest art, photography, fanart and writing for BENT - a new collaborative zine series looking at our city’s subcultural and queer communities. The exhibition shows off their work in a collection of over fifty risograph-printed pieces.
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre is pleased to announce that painter Maisie Chilton is the recipient of its 2025 d/Deaf and/or Disabled Artist Development Residency.
It’s our favourite time of the year again!! Toi Pōneke Arts Centre studio residents’ welcome audiences and community to Toi Pōneke gallery for our annual end of year pay and carry exhibition.
This is a 6-week opportunity for a Wellington based emerging producer to work alongside a Wellington choreographer, a cast and crew (of up to 3), and a producer mentor to produce a development season of a new dance theatre work. You will receive a stipend for the 6 weeks.
Over the 6 weeks; the emerging producer will be working with their mentor to prepare a funding application for this new dance theatre work.
This opportunity is open to one Wellington based choreographer who will receive 25hrs a week for 5 weeks in the Toi Pōneke Dance Studio to develop a new dance theatre work. You will work alongside an emerging producer and a cast/ crew of up to 3. We recommend your cast/crew could be made up of 2 dancers and a videographer/photographer to help document the work. The choreographer and crew will receive a stipend to rehearse and will present to an ‘industry only’ showing at the end of the residency. The choreographer will also have access to a paid mentor. (A choreographer, Dramaturg or Director.)
![Lunchtime Concert with vegetable. machine. animal [Kieran Monaghan] and Andrew Faleatua](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/589a8c096a4963ad40f38d2f/1745813274033-JU5VNI7FSGVY458XCGG6/Kieran+Mongahan+and+Andrew+Faleatuea.png)
![Lunchtime Concert with vegetable. machine. animal [Kieran Monaghan] and Ruby Solly](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/589a8c096a4963ad40f38d2f/1745808462696-17RSVAPCUR0YU4T8LPW2/Kieran+Mongahan+and+Ruby+Solly+.png)
![Lunchtime Concert with vegetable. machine. animal [Kieran Monaghan] and DSLB](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/589a8c096a4963ad40f38d2f/1744779157631-BM67QMEVDPZD4ZOA7NBY/Kieran+Mongahan+and+DSLB+.png)
