What’s shaping exhibition making today? The Questionnaire is a new series intended to highlight curatorial practice in Aotearoa by inviting curators to reflect on what has shaped their thinking, how they work with artists, and what we see as audiences. Israel Randell of City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi is our first respondent, speaking to us just as she opened her show Meditations, offsite at the National Library of New Zealand from 30 November 2024–1 March 2025.
What is an exhibition or text that has made an impression on your practice?
‘Calling Forth Our Pasts, Citing Our Futures: An Envisioning of a Kaupapa Māori Citational Practice’ by Hana Burgess, Donna Cormack and Papaarangi Reid has made seismic shifts in my thinking in relation to curatorial practice. The opening sentence simply states: “We as wāhine Māori are thinking about who, how and why we cite.”
To have a text that provides a way in, that validates our own knowledge systems, that boldly refuses to perpetuate a system that doesn’t work for us, is liberating. To say: I’m not going to cite Western research within a te ao Māori framework. For a paper to reposition what we cite—whether it be conversations with others, songs, pūrākau—and plainly state how this might be done, has helped, for me, to bridge the tension between the academic world and the way I inherently approach all my relationships, including within my curatorial practice.
Which of your own projects do you consider to be the most significant?
Ngā māreikura a Matariki, whakaniko ki Ngāti Awa at Whakatāne Museum was a huge project, where I worked alongside iwi to realise an exhibition platforming Ngāti Awa wāhine artists. This project had relationships at its core and centred the aspirations of the iwi. My role in this was about ushering in new and positive relationships, and creating space for the visibility of wāhine Māori. It was significant to both that time in my career and to the rohe I was in at that time.
I am currently installing Meditations, an exhibition that will bring together experimental, emergent practices, alongside work by an established artist, and holding a plurality of ideas. Within the group we have Māori positions and voices—Te Ara Minhinnick and Areta Wilkinson—a First Nations voice—Moorina Bonini—and the other artist is Pākehā—Lily Dowd. Each artist is coming to the exhibition with their own viewpoint, but in relation to each other they connect through materiality and thinking about memory and time. It’s really nice when you select artists and they converge and really hit it off. No one knew about each other’s practices before the show. Before they came together, I introduced them to each practice to help establish an understanding of how the exhibition might unfold.
The show itself has a tactility to it, and an emphasis on raw materials. Te Ara was in Aotearoa Contemporary, but for this exhibition she’s showing a very different work, using black onepū (sand) collected from Waitaki Beach, and instead of a structural form she’s making this formless mound that cascades. It sits on the floor, which is completely black, so it feeds into the wider surface of the gallery. Which is beautiful when you think about her work as whenua, extending out to the whole space. The material really acts as a Trojan horse for the many layers that it is embodying.
Where do you start when you begin a new project?
I always start my projects with artists, often asking questions between ourselves, critiquing ideas and dreaming up what it is we would like to do, or say, or create. It’s a loose starting point that often leads me down a series of rabbit holes—but I like to start in conversation with others.
Other than galleries and museums, where do you look for creativity and culture?
Lately, I’ve been finding a lot of creativity in play—at the skate park and through novel experiences. It’s wild, the amount of creativity that comes out of trying something new and being painfully bad at it—but doing it anyways.
Where is the centre of the art world for you?
A marae, a wānanga, wherever our people are comfortable to be themselves. I’m embedded within a community culturally and socially, so they hold me accountable in many ways. The collective is central to my curatorial practice, so the relationship I have with communities is always one that prioritises manaakitanga, whakawhanaungatanga and a commonality.
What are you reading?
ATE Journal of Māori Art Volume Four, and Intuitive Ritual: A Mana Wahine Sourcebook by Dr Ngahuia
Murphy.
What are you listening to?
Doechii—the most epic force in music right now. I am in awe.
What are you most excited about in contemporary art?
The trajectory of Indigenous globalisation and queer futurism within contemporary arts, from the perspective of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+.
What are you most frustrated with in contemporary art?
Equity for artists—by now we should be paying artists more, investing in their practices in a way that allows them to create from a space of abundance. I often think, what would our artists be making if they didn’t have to juggle multiple things or be constantly advocating their worth to others?
Within an institution, there is a lot of advocacy that a curator should do for an artist, especially from their position as a permanent salaried employee. There is a duty of care to constantly push against whatever is the norm. I’m all for asking for what you want and what you need, and I approach artists with that same transparency. I lay things out for them and ask what they need and whether that is going to be enough, and then I advocate for more.
It’s an attitude that people within institutions need to be reminded of, to be oriented toward the exchange that is actually going on, and the value of that, and who holds the power.
What do I actually want to do in my curatorial practice? I want to funnel resources straight to artists. And give visibility to artists that I believe in. If I only do those two things, that is success to me.
What words of advice, wisdom or provocation do you always return to?
In the early days I would ask other curators, “What does a good curator do?” There were lots of different answers, but one I always come back to is what Ioana Gordon-Smith said to me (which I think someone else told her), that a good curator holds the line.
Now, being in an institution, holding the line relates to all the things I’ve mentioned. When the institution says, “No, we can’t do that, we can’t raise the artist fees, we can’t pay for this,” in each context, you need to make sure that you hold the line so that the artist doesn’t have to deal with it, as it’s not their job. You can push back on those things with confidence as a curator.
You shouldn’t let institutional or bureaucratic things water down the essence of an artist’s work.
