Toi Pōneke Arts Centre is a creative space where the city's arts communities interact, produce innovative works, teach and exhibit in the heart of Wellington.
The Toi Pōneke Podcast
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre is a creative space where the city's arts communities interact, produce innovative works, teach and exhibit in the heart of Wellington.
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’.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
‘Ua Tafa Mai Ata refers to both the title of the upcoming exhibition held at Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, and the way that many remember the Dawn Raids. Although this is a period associated with trauma, discrimination and feelings of unsafety, ‘Ua Tafa Mai Ata invites an opportunity to engage with this history, while giving Pasifika the agency to let go and bring forward aspects of healing.