Join us to celebrate the opening of City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi’s exhibition Meditations at The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Hear artists Lily Dowd, Moorina Bonini, and Te Ara Minhinnick discuss building dynamic and evolving material archives through their art practices with curator Israel Randell.
Lily Dowd
Lily Dowd is a photographic artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, working with analogue and camera-less techniques of making. Recently graduating with a Master of Fine Arts at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University Wellington, Dowd is interested in how time can be shown through light, decay and disappearance, questioning the ephemerality through photographic surface.
Moorina Bonini
Moorina Bonini is a proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta Dhulunyagen family clan of Ulupna and the Yorta Yorta, Wurundjeri and Wiradjuri Briggs/McCrae family. Moorina is an artist whose works are informed by her experiences as an Aboriginal and Italian woman. Her practice attempts to disrupt and critique the eurocentric foundations that centralise Indigenous categorisation within western institutions. By unsettling the narrative placed upon Aboriginal people as a result of colonisation of Aboriginal Australia, Moorina’s practice is based within Indigenous Knowledge systems and brings this to the fore. Her work has been exhibited in various shows across Australia and also internationally. Galleries and Institutions include ACMI, The Shed (NY), Sydney Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Centre for Contemporary Photography and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Most recent major commissions include Primavera: Young Australian Artists (2023) and her PhD exhibition across Bunjilaka Aboriginal Culture Centre, Melbourne Museum and MADA Gallery (2023). She is currently a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary (2024-2026).
Te Ara Minhinnick
Te Ara Minhinnick resides in Waiuku on the southwestern banks of Taamaki between three significant waterways: Te Awa o Waikato, Te Maanukanuka o Hoturoa, and Te Tai o Rehua. Te Ara follows the shorelines of the three waterways, collecting handfuls of uku, whenua and onepuu. In this process, she draws upon the material whakapapa of whenua to unearth the ancestral presence of her Iwi, Ngaati Te Ata. In her practice, Te Ara is interested in re-representing whenua as a site of evidence, a source to remember, and a place of obligation to all.
Te Ara holds a Master of Fine Arts from Whitecliffe College, where she also lectures. Previous shows include Aotearoa Contemporary, Auckland Art Gallery (2024); SCAPE Public Art (2023); Between The Gift and its Reprisal, Artspace Aotearoa (2023); Wiggling Together Falling Apart, Michael Lett (2023); Whānau Marama, Seasons Gallery (2022); Toitū Te Moana, Tautai (2022).
