Exhibition openings

Dreaming from afar

Friday 13 February, 5.30-7.30pm

Join us for the opening of our summer suite of exhibitions – Dreaming from afar and Rangi White in The Changing Room. All are welcome, we hope to see you there to celebrate the opening of our first exhibitions of 2026.

Dreaming from afar features new work by brunelle dias (India, Aotearoa New Zealand), Gian Manik (Australia) and Tyrone Te Waa (Ngāti Tūwharetoa), whose distinctive approach to painting depicts places both visited and imagined. Running concurrently will be the year’s first presentation in The Changing Room 2026 by Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist Rangi White.

Dreaming from afar is presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026. The Changing Room 2026 is supported by The Chartwell Trust.

Find out more

Workshop

Pillow Painting

Saturday 14 February, 10.30am-1.30pm

Embrace your romantic side in this Valentine’s Day pillow painting workshop to mark the opening of Dreaming from afar. In this drop-in workshop you’ll hand-paint a pillowcase inspired by Tyrone Te Waa’s paintings of his dreams on fitted bed sheets that reference the mattress rooms often found in the wharenui. Adorn a pillow for the romantic and platonic loves in your life or make one for yourself as the ultimate act of self-care.

This is a free workshop with all materials provided. This event is presented as part of Auckland Pride Festival 2026.

find out more

Artist talk

brunelle dias, gian manik & tyrone te waa

Saturday 14 February, 2-3pm

On the opening day of the exhibition, join exhibiting artists brunelle dias, Gian Manik and Tyrone Te Waa for an artist kōrero about their newly produced artworks in Dreaming from afar. All are welcome, light refreshments provided.

brunelle dias (India, Aotearoa New Zealand) is a painter whose diaristic practice dwells on the intimacies of domestic and everyday scenes. Interested in the relationship between figure and ground, she often portrays life as a first-generation immigrant to Aotearoa and explores the metaphysical nature of her environment through the fluid nature of paint. dias holds her Master of Visual Arts from AUT, School of Art and Design.

Gian Manik (Australia) lives and works in Naarm Melbourne, Australia. A queer artist of Dutch and Indian heritage, he often explores various tropes preserved in historical painting, including Orientalism and queer representation throughout art history. Manik holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from Curtin University and a Master of Fine Arts from Monash University.

Tyrone Te Waa (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) is a Taumaranui-based artist whose practice is informed by autobiographical and ancestral reflections and queer histories in Aotearoa New Zealand. Primarily known for bound and scaffolded fabric sculptures, he works across drawing, painting, felting and wearable objects. Te Waa holds a Master of Creative Practice from Unitec Institute of Technology Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka and in 2022 he received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi Springboard Award.

view exhibition

Film screening

Navigating Slowly

with CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image

Saturday 14 March, 2-3pm

Curated by Noel Meek with support from CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image, Navigating Slowly is a screening of eight video works by Aotearoa artists using moving images to choreograph new temporal relations with whenua, whakapapa, and our changing ecological world. Featuring: Sione Faletau, Jeremy Leatinu’u, Janine Randerson, James Tapsell-Kururangi, Nat Tozer, Noel Meek, Jake Kīanō Skinner, Sriwhana Spong, and Ana Iti.

Navigating Slowly interrogates our relationships with whenua by demonstrating forms of traversal that are slow, that are circuitous or circular, that give still time to place, seeking out new knowledge in the land via reversals, retreats, returns, and hauntings. The programme brings together contemporary artists from Aotearoa who share a meditative approach in their visual practice that runs counter to the accelerated narratives of colonialism and capitalism. The works sit with whenua, telling tales of travel, whakapapa, geology, language, and wairua.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026. This programme is supported by CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image.