Toi Takeaway 2025 - Pay and Take it away!

In Each Other’s Pockets opens Friday 24 October 2025 at Toi Pōneke Gallery, Te Aro, Wellington.

Through her playful installation, contemporary jeweller Louise Hill interrogates the politics of pockets; the private spaces that shape how we move through the world, investigating what it means for some to be equipped with the tools they need, while others are not.

20 years at Abel Smith looks back on the tapestry of Toi Pōneke at Abel Smith Street and invites artists, friends, family and guest on a small stroll down memory lane in hopes to build an even stronger step forward into the future. Opens Friday 5:30 24 Oct and is on in the back gallery until Friday 21 Nov 2025.

He Whare Mahana - a warm house, a full house, a cosy kainga to nurture your dreams and the infi nite queer possibilities. Tātou āhuru mōwai, nau mai, haere mai.

Artists Katy Cottrell and Rick Allender explore the connection between land and sea through intricate works crafted from natural wood veneers.

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.

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Artist Liana Leiataua explores themes of identity, memory and symbolism in an upcoming exhibition that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Dawn Raids. Ua Tafa Mai Ata is a visual response that acknowledges the ongoing and lived experiences that Pacific communities continue to be impacted by the events that occurred in 1974-1976. Through collaboration with Pasifika youth and aiga, the exhibition seeks to create a path towards healing, reclamation, peace, and restoration of the mana for future generations to come.

When faced with the fear of losing our whakapapa, the question remains: how do we maintain hope in humanity in the face of devastating circumstances?

Whetuurangitia is the transformation from tangata to tipuna by way of stars, responding to current crises Aroha Matchitt-Millar, Rosalie Koko and Mauatua Fa’ara-Reynolds come together to process the unbearable weight of grief for those in Palestine.

Message To a Stranger, is an ongoing body of work combining ephemeral electronic modern communication with stone cutting, which is traditional, slow and enduring. This work playfully explores how these messages are sent, hiding them in urban and natural environments. Visitors can interact with the work, creating and displaying rubbings.

Te Wharetoi o Toi Pōneke (Toi Pōneke Arts Centre) presents Aho Hononga: a six-week special exhibition to celebrate mana whenua ringatoi of Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Hā-kina, hā-puta.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Dive into the world of Breathwork, a new immersive audio exhibition by BJ Leo.

always love xxx is an exhibition through Yumoi zheng and Isadora Lao’s stories. A core focus within this body of work is connection: location, family, queer identity, love and how these overlap.

This is the life that was, attempts to make sense of life and the world of Amanda Smith; recognising private trauma and public chaos co-exist. Memory and time play a significant part in exploration, the unrealistic longing for times now gone and for times ahead.

Ordinary Devotion, is an installation of large-scale drawings and simple architectural interventions reflecting on domestic space and motherhood. This artwork stems from an established line of work exploring interior surfaces, shadow and the many individual histories layered within our homes.

Toi 500 annual residents’ exhibition is a chance for audiences to grab an art bargain with works $500.00 or under. Works presented by Anthea Hayley, David Brown, Franzeska Pound, Jane Hyder, Kedron Parker, Laura Woodward, Maria Colls, Odette Anscombe-Smith, Selene Simcox, Yon Yi Sohn, Terence Turner, Workspace Studios and more. 

Gehaakte Gordijntjes - Crocheted Curtains examines how the 21 houses Elisabeth grew up in shaped her understanding of 'home' and her identity as a Dutch New Zealander. Using architectural constructs based on fragments of memory, experience, and migration; the gallery transforms into an abstract house, inviting contemplation of the sense of home we all carry within.

Inspired by Richard Long’s 1967 work ‘A Line Made by Walking’, three Wellington-based Artists collaborate in this exhibition of drawing, painting, embroidery and installation of ‘lines’ - the basic element of visual storytelling - examining the cultural hybridity of their Korean heritage in their adapted lives in New Zealand.

He Rito follows the hands of four rangatahi Māori artists who reconnect to and work with harakeke.
This is breath. This is growth. This is healing. Woven together by their shared interest in the active potential of harakeke, the hands of four Ringatoi explore materiality through customary and contemporary practice. He Rito integrates whanaungatanga and reclamation, reconnecting with taonga and imagining expansive futures of Māoritanga.

Under the pile of washing, school notices, birthday present wish lists and to-dos, there’s an abundance of seething creativity. How do we start to acknowledge invisible labour, its significance, its cost, its beauty and the generosity of it? Dirty Laundry brings together thirteen artists and writers to explore this question.

Curated by Stevei Houkāmau, Te Matapihi is an exhibition concept that brings together a diverse group of Māori artists. Originating from a range of backgrounds and artforms, this group of established makers have dedicated themselves to working outside of the box, exploring the full spectrum of Māori creativity and practice from the historic to the contemporary. Te Matapihi or “The Window” offers a view and invites you to explore the beauty and diversity of Māori art and practice through the eyes of a talented group of makers.

Following their recently released photobook ‘Territory Unknown,’ creatives Chyna Lily and Simon L Wong are displaying their work in a group show ‘Sailing Lanterns’ at Toi Poneke, opening on the 19th of May from 5:30 pm. Chyna and Simon Invite Grace Ko, Allister Tran, Matthew Yee and Jacqueline Trinh to expand on being Asian creatives in Aotearoa.

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The 2022 Toi Pōneke – New Zealand School of Music Sound Artist-in-Residence, Dr. Cristohper Ramos Flores, presents the works produced during his residency. Little Portals is an audio and visual ensemble. Letterboxes collected from different points in Wellington were modified to work as loudspeakers and mechatronic instruments with small video players; acting as a miniature audio and visual orchestra that performs works composed for the exhibition.

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Under Heaven’s Heel is an eclectic survey of the oppressive economic and social practices of capitalism dating back over 500 years. Paintings and sculptures by artist Sam Clague muse on the origins of our political landscape.

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