Opening event: Jeanine Clarkin in conversation with Giles Peterson

Join exhibiting artist, Jeanine Clarkin, and Giles Peterson in conversation, surveying Clarkin’s thirty-year career in fashion design and fashion activism to mark the opening of Te aho tapu hou: The new sacred thread at Te Uru. Their discussion will respond to her work from its beginnings in Kirikiriroa / Hamilton, through fashion school to the founding of her first streetwear label, all the way to her projects on the global stage. In each of these eras, Clarkin and Peterson will look to how indigeneity and sustainability have shaped her work and how her work in turn has forged a place for these things in both mainstream and haute-couture fashion.

Jeanine Clarkin is a pioneer of Māori fashion in Aotearoa, having started her eponymous label over twenty-seven years ago. Jeanine’s design story is one where success and integrity have been woven together to create a design history and practice that encompasses haute couture to slow fashion. Clarkin has shown collections in New Zealand and internationally and continues to champion indigenous design both at home and abroad. 

Giles Peterson lectures at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design in the School of Fashion and Sustainability. He teaches on New Zealand / Pacific art and design history; Contemporary art and design history; Fashion theory; Business and Management studies; and Arts marketing. Peterson is also an independent curator of contemporary urban art from the Pacific Rim. His curatorial career spans fifteen years, including landmark exhibitions of national and international significance, such as Out Of the Blue (2001), Island Crossings (2000) and Urban Pacific (2007).

01 October, 8am-6pm