‘Animals first entered the imagination as messengers and promises,’ John Berger.   

Messengers explores the enduring gaze between humans and other animals. The exhibition title is inspired by a line from John Berger’s seminal 1977 essay ‘Why Look at Animals?’ Berger argued that the relationship between humans and animals – ‘our unspeaking companionship’ – has been corrupted by capitalism. 

Messengers brings together historical and contemporary ways of looking at animals in photography and art. It features archival photographs from the National Library and Alexander Turnbull Collections, first taken by newspaper photographers in the mid twentieth century. The images capture everything from the polar bears once housed in Wellington Zoo, to JoDee a baby circus elephant wearing a leg splint, and an elderly gentleman standing amongst the life size concrete animal sculptures in his garden. These images are at once tender and loving, sentimental and silly, kind and indifferent. 

Messengers places these archival photographs in proximity and conversation with contemporary sculpture and moving image works by four Aotearoa-based artists: Denise Batchelor, Brit Bunkley, Jane Dodd and John Ward Knox. From eerie AI and computer-generated animals to the hypnotic stare of a real live Ruru; from carved wooden godwits you can hold in your hand to a ‘hominoid’ brooch you can wear, each artist’s work speaks to the ‘unspeaking companionship’ between humanity and other animals.