Visiting Curators Programme

Te Uru and UNSW Galleries are delighted to announce the Visiting Curators Programme, a new partnership and exchange programme designed to foster deeper engagement between practitioners and institutions in Aotearoa and Australia. Curators from both countries will be hosted internationally to conduct research, meet with artists, and present on their respective practices to date. The Visiting Curators Programme is intended to facilitate ongoing connections between Australia and Aotearoa that build greater opportunities and resonance for art communities within the region. 

Four curators have been nominated for the inaugural 2024 programme, each at different points in their curatorial careers and with different streams of research. It is with great pleasure that we announce the following participants in this year’s programme. 

The Visiting Curators Programme is made possible through collaboration with hosting institutions Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and University of New South Wales (UNSW).

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Join curator Pip Wallis for a presentation on her recent research on Wednesday 8 May at 1.30pm. The talk will be held at AUT lecture theatre WG308 and light refreshments will be provided.

Pip Wallis is Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art where she recently co-curated, with Andy Butler, Statecraft, an exhibition by Taungurung artist Steven Rhall and Vietnamese-German artist Sung Tieu. Before joining MUMA, Pip was Director of Programs at Callie’s in Berlin where she worked on programs by Bouchra Khalili, Sophie Lee and Colin Self. She was previously Curator, Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, where she curated projects by Simone Forti, Hito Steyerl and Adam Linder and commissioned works by Nicholas Mangan, Ruth Höflich, Archi Barry and Ulla Von Brandenberg. She was Curator in Residence at Chisenhale Gallery London and Managing Editor at X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, Los Angeles. Pip was a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council funded study Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (2020 – 2024) and co-ceditor of the associated publication Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (2024) published by the National Gallery of Victoria. 

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Christina Barton (DLitt, MNZM) is an art historian, writer, curator, editor and educator based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. For 17 years (2007–2023) she led Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, the university gallery at Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand where she was responsible for developing the exhibition programme and building the University’s art collection. Prior to this she was Curator Contemporary New Zealand Art at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand (1993–95) and Assistant Curator Collections at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (1992–1994). Over her career she has curated a wide range of exhibitions from her first contemporary survey: after McCahon: some configurations in recent art (Auckland Art Gallery 1989) to ambitious surveys such as Art Now: The First Biennial Review of Contemporary Art at Museum of New Zealand (1994) and solo surveys of under-exposed artists such as Vivian Lynn (Adam Art Gallery, 2009), Kim Pieters (Adam Art Gallery 2014) and Billy Apple (Auckland Art Gallery, 2015). She is especially proud of the shows she facilitated at Adam Art Gallery where artists were able to extend their practices in relation to the startling architecture of the building. They include Joseph Kosuth, Billy Apple, Anthony McCall, Simon Denny, Jacqueline Fraser, Luke Willis Thompson, Ruth Buchanan, Edith Amituanai, and Kate Newby, among others.

Photo: Robert Cross

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Naomi Evans’s curatorial, dialogue and writing practice critically engages with art and exhibition-making as inextricable from social and political contexts. Evans has worked in curatorial departments of International Art, QAGOMA, the MCA Australia, and independently. Appointed curator at Griffith University Art Museum in 2011, she has presented solo exhibitions Chantal Fraser: The Ascended (2023-touring 2024), Elizabeth Newman: Is that a ‘No’? (2020) and Simryn Gill: Sweet Chariot (2016), and group exhibitions such as Source Materials: Ómra Caoimhe, Nicole Foreshew, ektor garcia, d harding, Bronwyn Katz, Shireen Taweel(2021-22) (a curatorial collaboration with Dr Carol McGregor), The Abyss: Strategies in Contemporary Art (2019), and Dark Rooms: Women directing the lens 1978-1998 (2018). Evans is Adjunct Fellow, Queensland College of Art, and a member of Griffith University’s Creative Arts Research Institute.

Photo: Louis Lim

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Taarati Taiaroa (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Apa) holds the position of Assistant Curator Contemporary Māori Art at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Len Lye Centre, a contemporary art museum of the Pacific based in Ngāmotu, Aotearoa. Her most recent exhibition is Te Hau Whakatonu, A Series of Never-Ending Beginnings (5 August 2023 – 11 February 2024) a survey exhibition of Toi Māori from the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Collection, and her curatorial debut, that has set the foundation for a renewed forward focus for Māori art programming at the Gallery. Previously Taarati was Assistant Curator Māori Art for the landmark exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery. Her research has focused on Toi Māori exhibition histories, Māori Post-minimalism and the ethics of collaborative practice. Recent written contributions can be found in Crafting Aotearoa (2019), Art New Zealand (Summer 2021-22), Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art (2022) and Robin White: Something is Happening Here (2022). 

Photo: Vanessa Laurie/Stuff

01 May - 30 November 2024