To celebrate the opening of A Place Apart, four renowned poets—Gregory Kan, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Rachel O’Neill, and Sinead Overbye—share readings that complement the exhibition. Poetry tests language for all its got, pushing it to its limits, revelling in the possibility of its pitfalls. Its allure appears out of the cracks it forms in our understandings. This is also a way to think of Christina Pataialii and Ruth Ige’s relationship to painting. A Place Apart curator Moya Lawson will introduce the readings, with Selina Tusitala Marsh Zoomed in to conclude this special event.

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Gregory Kan is a writer and programmer. His poetry books This Paper Boat (2016) and Under Glass (2019) were published by Auckland University Press. His poetry and essays have featured in exhibitions and publications across New Zealand.

Selina Tusitala Marsh (ONZM, FRSNZ) is the former New Zealand Poet Laureate and a much-celebrated performer and author. She's published three acclaimed collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), Dark Sparring (2013), and Tightrope (2017), and her latest work, the graphic memoir Mophead (2019), is shortlisted for the 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Rachel O’Neill is a writer, filmmaker and artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. Their debut book One Human in Height (Hue and Cry Press) was published in 2013. Recent poems appear in Sport, Landfall, Haunts, and Ōrongohau: Best New Zealand Poems 2019.

Sinead Overbye (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Porou) is a writer and an editor of Stasis Journal. Her work has appeared in Starling, Sport, Tupuranga, The Pantograph Punch, and on Radio New Zealand.