- Objectspace

Rare Collection

01 October 2016 - 05 November 2016

Rare Collection sees Australian jeweller Julie Blyfield respond to the 1861 book of plant illustrations Wild flowers of South Australia made by Fanny De Mole in 1861 in Adelaide, South Australia. It was the first book to illustrate the flora of South Australia, the old volume contains 20 plates and illustrates 38 different flowering plants from South Australia. Each of the delicate, hand coloured prints is accompanied by a name plate with a description of the plant species with the botanical / common names. It is believed that in the mid 1800’s Fanny’s plant illustrations were sent to England where they were made into Lithographs and returned to Adelaide for hand-colouring with assistance from her family and friends.

Forged

20 August 2016 - 21 September 2016

Johanna Zellmer
An exhibition examining political subjectivity through the iconographic languages employed in the forging of a nations currency. Drawing on themes of migrancy, movement and identity Forged reflects on the political codification of personal experience through the language of jewellery.

Johanna Zellmer was born in 1968 and completed a formal apprenticeship as a goldsmith in Germany and a masters degree at the Australian National University Canberra School of Art. Her research interests are the construction of national identities and cross-cultural matters. Her work was presented in New Zealand’s TVONE series Neighbourhood (episode 10: North Dunedin, 2012) and selected for New Zealand’s Parkin Drawing Prize in 2014. Dr. Pravu Mazumdar discussed her projects in his keynote for Schmuck 2013 at The International Design Museum Munich; this text is published online. Her work has been exhibited in Australia, Korea, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and New Zealand and is held in public collections internationally. She calls a small farm in Dunedin ‘home’ and works as lecturer and Artists-in-Residence Coordinator at the Dunedin School of Art.

Image: forged detail: 800 years of The German Brotherhood, Johanna Zellmer, 2008

Samundar and Haldi

09 July 2016 - 10 August 2016

An exhibition focusing on the textile works of emerging artist Quishille Charan, and her investigations of traditional Fijian textiles.

Still Life Forms

26 May 2016 - 02 July 2016

An immersive installation by contemporary jeweller Chloe Rose Taylor

The Group: home-wares

30 January 2016 - 27 February 2016

Julia Holderness

Belinda Ellis - ICONZ

14 November 2015 - 19 December 2015

iCONZ of New Zealand

Vintage Paua Shell Jewellery from the 1930's to the 1970's

11 September 2015 - 31 October 2015

The Family Jewels

11 July 2015 - 05 September 2015

Jewellery by Warwick Freeman

Lindsay Marks : Music from Small Boxes

06 June 2015 - 04 July 2015

An exhibition of hand crafted musical instruments by designer and maker Lindsay Marks.

F.O.U.N.D or Foundation of Unfathomable and Notable Discoveries

19 February 2015 - 28 February 2015

F.O.U.N.D showcases works created by 15 participants in the Incredible Strange Object, a national jewellers masterclass led by Munich-based jeweler Peter Bauhuis.

Rococo Revolution

12 November 2014 - 20 December 2014

A recent whirlwind tour of museums, palaces and treasure houses in Europe was both exciting and nauseating in equal measures.

Parian–oia

26 September 2014 - 08 November 2014

A collection of parian ware.

Bootcamp

07 August 2014 - 26 September 2014

It was a visit in 2012 to Street, a small Somerset (UK) village with a big Shoe Museum that ‘tipped the scales’ for John Perry. Upon returning to New Zealand he started to consolidate shoe, and shoe-related, material collected on an ad hoc basis over the past 40 years.

Put a Cover on It

17 March 2014 - 26 April 2014

Thirty four years ago I was given a very fine crocheted and beaded jug cover as a wedding present by Mrs Laubscher, a distant relative. It was put away somewhere safe and forgotten.

Three years ago I was visiting my mother and at the back of a kitchen drawer I found a stained old jug cover, sadly neglected. I asked about it and was told that Mrs Laubscher had made it and given it to my mother many years ago. I rescued it and brought it back to Auckland.

Muslin from Mosul

01 February 2014 - 08 March 2014

Growing up in Iraq collector Enaam Battani recalls that she had an ‘incomprehensible passion’ for old things. She recalls a childhood visit to the remnants of the city of Babylon where she tried to souvenir fragments and her father forbidding her to remove these fragments. This experience kindled her interest in Iraqi antiquities and culture. This passion has travelled with her and is expressed in a number of ways in her life in New Zealand. As a jeweller she works with silver and Bedouin jewellery elements, often reshaping and redesigning broken elements, to create new works that convey the richness of the cultures of Iraq.

Clarice Cliff: The Art of Bizarre

27 July 2013 - 21 September 2013

Clarice Cliff is recognised as the leading designer of commercial British ceramics of the interwar period. In 1932, a few years after the launch of her Bizarre wares it was said “There is nothing more typical of this age of simplicity in design than Clarice Cliff’s work and it is safe to say that early twentieth century design will be inseparately associated in the minds of collectors of the future with the name of Clarice Cliff.”

Bows, Shanks and Blades

15 June 2013 - 20 July 2013

Collector Yvonne Marsh estimates that she possesses about 3000 pairs of scissors. Her collecting has been encouraged by her parents, a husband who collected bladed instruments – knives and swords – and a passion for embroidery, which fuels her other principal collecting interest, the tools and instruments associated with needlework.

The Absolute Object of Desire

24 November 2012 - 19 December 2012

New Yorker columnist Andrea Lee has written "...for the past several years we have been living in a gilded age of handbags: a rococo time of profligacy, opulence, heights of stylistic genius and depths of vulgarity, but, above all, a time of exponential proliferation and vitality. Since the turn of the millennium, the role of the handbag has changed from that of a useful but peripheral accessory to the absolute object of desire."

Sample of Samplers

30 June 2012 - 18 August 2012

What we recognise as a sampler emerged in sixteenth century England. Samplers at this time were made by wealthy women as reference guides of particular stitches, motifs and border designs at a time when pattern books were rare. Needlework for members of the leisured classes was an essential social accomplishment and for others needlework proficiency was a means of economic survival.

Kapiti Ceramics: The Brian Wood Collection

11 May 2012 - 09 June 2012

"The driver when I started collecting ceramics was my relationship with the potters... As my collection grew it began to include works by makers I didn't know. After shifting cities and countries a few times I have honed my collection down to those works I could not bear to part with, and as it happens, these are the Kapiti works that I first collected. The reason I can't part with these pots is due to my connections with their makers." - Brian Wood

The Lives of Linen

17 March 2012 - 09 May 2012

An early twentieth century guide regarding household linen advises: "Every housekeeper delights in a goodly supply of household linen....it is a true economy to buy an adequate supply of linen at one time, for by this method every article will last much longer....An ordinary outfit that will give good satisfaction is one dozen table cloths, six dozen napkins...several tea cloths and sufficient centrepieces, sideboard covers, scarves, doilies...to give sufficient change when some items are in the laundry."

The Glenn Jowitt Collection

25 November 2011 - 22 December 2011

Auckland photographer Glen Jowitt is internationally renowned for his images of Pacifica peoples, their culture and lives. In the course of his work he has made over 20 visits to Pacific Islands in the last 30 years and he is closely linked to New Zealand Pacific communities. It is not surprising that he has a collection of handmade works from the Pacific, mainly hats, fans and placemats, which are displayed in the living room of his house and which bear silent witness to this sustained professional practice.

Type Specimens: A Berlin Miscellany

08 October 2011 - 21 November 2011

In February 2010 New Zealand graphic designer Tana Mitchell, then resident in Berlin, discovered an expansive collection of letterpress type in the basement of the Druckwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des BBK. Dusty, neglected and mostly unused, the BBK letterpress type collection consists of a vast and incomprehensible collection of metal and wooden letterpress type. Often unlabeled and incomplete, the collection comprised various fonts, from 6point and up, with a range of decorative & display typefaces. The Druckwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des BBK has a fully functioning printing press and with this Mitchell began printing, accounting for and making sense of the collection, with her own somewhat arbitrary methodology. Likening her activity to that of an entomologist in the field, the BBK typographic collection became the habitat from which Mitchell gathered her specimens.

Yunomi and Choko: the art of the everyday

09 July 2011 - 06 August 2011

Yunomi (tea beaker) and choko (sake cup) are everyday Japanese ceramic drinking vessels designed specifically for the consumption of green tea and sake. Yunomi are tea vessels usually made from ceramic material, being taller than they are wide, with a trimmed or turned foot different from the formal chawan, or tea bowl which is used in the Japanese tea ceremony. Like the yunomi, the choko, or sometimes ochoko, is a ceramic vessel used for the informal drinking of sake.

Blue Willow

14 May 2011 - 08 July 2011

Blue Willow is very likely the world's most popular dinnerware pattern as it has been in production since the late eighteenth century. Although inspired by Chinese ceramics the Blue Willow pattern was developed by British commercial potteries to meet the huge demand for Chinese style wares. The story of the young lovers who are transformed into doves was created to specifically promote the pattern. Since then Blue Willow, in all its variations, has continued to enchant Westerners. This installation, from the collection of Susan Andrew features tableware that explores variation in terms age, colour and pattern together with commercially and hand produced table linen, such as embroidered doilies, tray cloths and tea cosies both, which feature elements of and co-ordinate with Blue Willow.

Pop Up!

29 January 2011 - 24 February 2011

While the term 'pop-up' books is widely used, the more correct term is actually 'movable book'. This covers any book with moveable parts and includes; pop-ups, pop-outs, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, laps, pull-tabs and pull-downs. The collector behind this installation acquires books for pleasure and reference. The pleasure she obtains from her pop-up books derives, in part, from the pleasure that they provide for others, especially children, although not all pop-up books are designed for children.

The Museum of True History: recent acquisitions

06 November 2010 - 18 December 2010

Modelled on, but very different from, the highly prestigious Museum of Jurassic Technology, in Los Angeles, California, the Museum of True History - known affectionately as 'MOTH' by collection enthusiasts and museum professionals alike - is a humble, but by no means diminutive example, of five centuries of collecting traditions. It is not the first institution of its kind to inhabit the sometimes obtuse eclecticism of the private collection. The Museum of True History however does negotiate the relatively unbroken ground of the antipodean lifestyle in all of its normalised, contradictory and highly inoffensive splendour.

Imitation on Paper - nineteenth century wallpaper in New Zealand

04 September 2010 - 30 October 2010

European settlement in New Zealand happened at the same time as enormous advances in the wallpaper industry enabled it to be produced in quantities never before imagined. Wallpaper fashion reflected the convention that each room within a house should be decorated differently and in a style and colour which reflected its use: it was only walls in service spaces that were not papered. Wallpaper enabled many to enjoy the latest decorative styles cheaply and quickly in response to changing fashion and taste.

Domestic Splendor

03 July 2010 - 28 August 2010

The development of pressed glass technology revolutionised domestic interiors in the mid nineteenth century, as glassware, for the first time, could be produced at a cost that made it available to many. Up until that time glassware had been the preserve of the rich. Glass collector Margaret Oldham was an early collector of contemporary New Zealand studio glassware but in the early 1990s switched her focus to Victorian and Edwardian pressed glass tableware and has assembled a collection of over 500 pieces. Pressed glass was, until recently, a field largely unperturbed by collectors and has only just become considered as interesting as cut and engraved glass. Beyond her long standing affinity with glass Margaret Oldham she says she likes pressed glass for the reason that "it was for everyday usage "and because "these are products of stupendous craftsmanship on the part of the mould makers".

Meccano Man: Laconic Constructions

27 March 2010 - 26 June 2010

John Lyall has had a lifelong obsession with Meccaco. Working on a rug design project for Dilana Rugs several years ago, Lyall decided to work with his beloved Meccano, creating "seven different Meccano rugs as a recapitulation of one of the most famous products of Liverpool."

Auckland Studio Potters Collection

28 January 2010 - 20 March 2010

The collection of the Auckland Studio Potters is a working resource for the organisation and it members which largely features works made by visiting local and international tutors. These are works produced at short workshops where works have been progressed to stage where they can be bisque fired. In this selection are works made by some of the Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Awards judges who conducted workshops when they were in Auckland. The installation features works by Jeff Mincham, Ron Nagle, Akio Takamori, Takeshi Yasuda and Torbjorn Kvasbo.

Jamie McLellan

18 November 2009 - 19 December 2009

Designer Jamie McLellan says "over the years I have learned to live with and celebrate my inner engineer. More and more I am finding the beauty of an object lies in its engineering, how it's put together. I find both a purity in exposing this and at the same time a higher a level of detail being possible without the need for anything superflous." McLellan's abilities were recognized in the early 2000's with several outstanding projects for the UK based design firm, Tom Dixon. McLellan has since moved back to New Zealand, setting up and developing an independent design studio with an international clientele. This installation surveys a range of products that McLellan says "exhibit many of the qualities I try to infuse in anything I design, from a bicycle to a piece of furniture."

Overheard Conversation

23 September 2009 - 14 November 2009

An abiding interest in topiary (hedge and shrub sculpture) is one distinguishing feature of American ceramic sculptor Scott Chamberlin's artistic practice. Like a witness to an 'overheard conversation' - the conversation being New Zealand's Diaspora of recently immigrated peoples and our relation to the landscape - the new works that have resulted bear traces of his present inspiration but they also lean on his experiences as both sculptor and topiarist.

Tea Bowls From A Non Tea Drinker

25 July 2009 - 12 September 2009

Potter Lex Dawson was drawn to the rituals of Japanese and Islamic tea drinking, and their accoutrements, through accounts of them by American poets and writers. It was his interest in these rituals that prompted him to take up pottery night classes in the 1970s. Since then he has been making ceramics and has formed his own collection of tea bowls and related objects. This installation features tea bowls and related dishes made by Dawson and other potters. The second part of the installation is a homage to a Kiwi tea ritual - the smoko - made by Dawson.

Fancywork: Beaded Bags

02 May 2009 - 18 July 2009

In an age when leisure was a large aspect of some women's lives the making of 'fancy work' was widespread. Within this category the making of beaded bags was one of the most ambitious of undertakings. Collector Paul Orsman acquired his first beaded bag in 1974 and at its largest his collection was around 300 items. This selection from his collection features bags from two distinct eras, the Victorian era and the Art Deco period. Bags from the latter group are characterised by the bold colours popularised by the Ballet Russe and the use of Bakelite frames and handles. The value of these bags, for their collector, lies in the aesthetic pleasure they provide together with the deep pleasure of having saved these 'outmoded' but costly pieces of 'fancy work'.

2nd May 2009 - 18th July 2009

Sashimono: Japanese Fine Boxes

18 April 2009 - 29 April 2009

Sashimono is an installation of contemporary fine wooden boxes by highly esteemed Japanese craftsman Suda Kenji. Sashimono is the Japanese word for the traditional woodworking techniques employed to create boxes and furniture and it also refers to the objects that are created. Suda Kenji says "The space within the box is a source of mystery, a box is capable of shutting off a section of space, and so to open the lid is to gaze into the world. I find myself fascinated by this concept of the box and produce many myself. While I give due consideration to the function of boxes as containers, that is not my only consideration when making them; I also focus on decoration, appearance and texture."

Selections from a collection of small British ceramics

24 January 2009 - 21 February 2009

The selection of British ceramics displayed here was collected by Fiona Thompson mostly during the 1980's and complements a larger New Zealand collection. It's challenging to understand the cultural isolation that prevailed here as recently as twenty years ago. Despite popular enthusiasm, local knowledge of international crafts was limited; this showed in the work of local potters who, with notable exceptions, seemed stuck in an Anglo-Oriental time warp. Fiona's collection was formed against this tendency and on a shoestring budget, with pieces more often than not acquired from the makers themselves. Their size reflected a need for portability with a prime consideration being what could be carried without causing the airport scales to trip into excess.

Tekoteko

15 November 2008 - 20 December 2008

This collection of Tekoteko - an ancestor figure which is found in either freestanding form or attached to the gable of a whare (house) features works in a variety of media made principally for the tourist market dating back to the early twentieth century. This collection belongs to distinguished curator, collector and writer Mick Pendergrast.

Basalt Ware and Georgian Glass

11 October 2008 - 08 November 2008

The black bodied porcelain created by Joshua Wedgwood - Basalt ware - in the 1770's was inspired by the Etruscan black wares being excavated at Etruria in Italy. Wedgwood's Basalt ware was received with enthusiasm by the affluent upper and merchant classes and became so popular that over 170 other factories imitated it. Georgian glass too exhibits the elegant designs proliferating in eighteenth century England. With the advent of the cutting wheel, the Georgian glass makers of Ireland and England produced hand cut faceted glassware that has never been surpassed. This glassware was not just decorative like the overly fussy wares of the following century.

More Than Beads

06 September 2008 - 04 October 2008

Beads have been made, traded and used since 38,000 BC - the first documented find. They have no purpose other than that which people assign to them and in various cultures and systems they have operated as repositories of sacred knowledge, possessors of curative powers, prompts for prayer and ritual, passports to the afterlife and standard units of value in market systems. They are among the earliest evidence of abstract thinking as they materialise abstract notions such as power and wealth. The emergence of the modern concept of jewellery is associated with the emergence of identity in relation to large scale communities and in many societies social differences were demonstrated through the display of adornment.

A Point of Beauty

11 July 2008 - 22 August 2008

I began collecting hat pins because of my Grandmother. I loved hearing her stories about life in the "olden days". She talked about such things as lace-up boots, corsets and hat pins which fascinated me as a child growing up in the UK in the 1970's. She gave me my first three hat pins; the turquoise ones proudly displayed by my husband's Grandmother's silver elephant. Collecting came easy to me. My parents and I would frequent antique fairs where I would spend my hard earned pocket money. At the beginning there were too many to choose from, now it's a matter of hunting them out. But each purchase is as exciting as the first; they are all very special and often beautiful. Hat pins were functional, essential fashion accessories in their day and yet now seem almost ridiculous and impractical. - Sarah Cheesman

The Floor Pictures of Beatrice Cross

27 May 2008 - 10 July 2008

After a career in the fashion industry, Beatrice Cross started making rugs for a new home in 1973. In the words of her daughter Jane Cross, after "looking at a plan of a Frank Lloyd Wright house she decided to base a first rug on the floor plan of her own new house. And having produced this first one she then enthusiastically embarked on 25 years of rag rug making, incidentally redefining the art of the rag rug, taking it out of it's homely, crafty origins and repositioning it firmly in the field of contemporary art."

Requiem

29 January 2008 - 05 April 2008

Malcolm Harrison was a leading New Zealand artist and maker who died in November 2007. Working principally in the fields of embroidery textiles and from the late 1970s, he was very largely responsible for positioning those fields as areas of contemporary arts practice worthy of critical attention. In 2005, and to much acclaim, Malcolm Harrison was the inaugural recipient of the Creative New Zealand Craft/Object Fellowship and in the following year he presented 'Minus Reason' an exhibition of new work at Objectspace.

Far Sight

17 November 2007 - 22 December 2007

Far Sight is an Objectspace Vault installation comprising unsold and not for sale works from the collection of Peter Deckers. "My jewellery works are often displayed within the context and concept of the ideas, mediated by political, social, and cultural structures, values and meanings. This has always been an integral part inside my work and practice. In this exhibition the contexts are absent and/or broken up. The remaining collections of mixed works will formulate its own context within the light-displays and distortions of the lenses." - Peter Deckers

Moderne Buttons

13 October 2007 - 10 November 2007

From the Ruth Meier Collection comes a new Objectspace vault installation of American and European buttons mainly from the 1920 to 1940 period - one of the greatest periods of button design and production. The invention of new synthetic materials such as Bakelite created opportunities for new button designs and shapes that captured the characteristics of the modern age. Alongside commercially produced buttons are one-offs made for the haute couture market. Before returning to live in New Zealand Ruth Meier was a Europe-based button dealer.

European Voices

02 October 2007 - 06 October 2007

An installation of works by 20 European jewellers especially curated for Objectspace by leading European curators and writers Liesbeth den Besten and Love Jonsson. European Voices highlights the diversity of aesthetic expressions found in European contemporary jewellery and creates a discussion between various positions, traditions and objectives. The installation features contemporary work from Demark, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Souvenirs Of Pitcairn Island

08 September 2007 - 29 September 2007

Collector Adam Gifford has assembled a collection of rare Pitcairn Island wood carvings. The opening of the Panama Canal turned the Pitcairn Island from one of the world's most remote places to a popular stop on a busy shipping route. The Pitcairners were quick to take advantage and produced beautiful wood carvings, a selection of which are on show in Objectspace's Vault space.

Hats With Wings

23 June 2007 - 25 August 2007

The hats in designer Marilyn Sainty's collection are strong sculptural forms and the collection itself is notable for the number of works that have been designed by other fashion designers and for the number of works that play with the idea "what is a hat?"

Heiner Zimmerman

14 April 2007 - 12 May 2007

An installation of contemporary works by internationally renowned visiting German blacksmith Heiner Zimmermann. Atelier Zimmerman is a world famous family blacksmithing workshop, now managed by Heiner, known for its commitment to traditional craft technologies and contemporary design.

My Life As A House

27 January 2007 - 03 March 2007

The early nineteenth century saw the production of dolls houses as objects for children - initially for the children of the rich - as instruments for the teaching of household management. The advent of mass production during the Victorian Age saw the emergence of the dolls house as child's play toy. These two dolls houses from the first half of the twentieth century - one from New Zealand and the other from England - in different ways relate to the various strands of dolls house history.

Tony Kuepfer's Bottles

30 September 2006 - 21 December 2006

This impressive selection of tall bottles made by glass artist Tony Kuepfer has been collected by Stuart Park as part of his ongoing fascination with New Zealand glass.

Suspending Belief

22 July 2006 - 30 September 2006

Like the tea-cosy and other homely arts, the padded coat hanger is a relic of women's work, from a period of home-made and hand-made domesticity in New Zealand that we're rapidly losing. Ruth Watson's collection questions issues of culture, value and history through the variety of forms and diversity of approaches of an otherwise largely ignored domestic object.

New Black

15 May 2006 - 20 July 2006

This vault installation brings together two impressive collections which explore the darker side of 18th & 19th Century British design. Peter Shands collection of Black wedgewood basaltes titled "The Black is Sterling" has been cleverly cast with a private collection of mourning and memorial jewellery titled "Remembrances of the Departed".

The Sleek New Shape of Excitement

27 March 2006 - 13 May 2006

Stephen Rainbow shares his passion for 1950's British design highlighted in his collections of Poole ceramics and English Ford motor cars.

Big Bad Wolf and Friends

30 January 2006 - 25 March 2006

This collection of knitted soft toys has been collected by Justine Douglas from opportunity shops over the past 15 years.

Robinson Crusoe Syndrome

14 December 2005 - 28 January 2006

In an installation that includes books, ceramics and furniture from a number of centuries John Perry's collection explores the Robinson Crusoe Syndrome.

Cabinet Of Curiosities

01 November 2005 - 26 November 2005

To accompany Au revoir Marilyn Saint a Cabinet of Curiosities has been installed. Marilyn Sainty has filled the display cabinet with a selection of curiosities from her work space. These curiosities include bolts of fabric, swatches, photographs, invitations, labels, buttons, cards and postcards, drawings which as an assemblage, gives clues about this designers inspiration and the texture of that inspiration.

Cosy Times

06 September 2005 - 22 October 2005

Rosemary McLeod's book Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s-1950s which celebrates domestic handcraft and the spirit of 'making do' has been a 2005 best seller. A selection of Rosemary's own collection of tea cosies made from materials ranging from wool to kangaroo skin features in the vault.

Hey Tiki

14 June 2005 - 03 September 2005

This collection of 'tiki' and 'tiki inspired' objects is one of the collections belonging to distinguished curator, collector and writer Mick Pendergrast, author of numerous publications about Maori fibre.

Pates Pottery

29 March 2005 - 14 May 2005

"Something colourful, cheerful and frivolous" is how writer John Davenport has described Pates Pottery. Benjamin Chow's collection demonstrates this sentiment perfectly in his extravagant vault display of Pates ceramics.

Seventeen Years' Work

01 February 2005 - 26 March 2005

David Trubridge is one of New Zealand's best-known designers of contemporary furniture. His maquettes, or working models, were built as part of his design process and as a collection offers an insight into the artist's creative thinking.

Contemporary New Zealand Silver from the Collection of the James Wallace Arts Trust

19 December 2004 - 19 December 2004

In 1995 notable Auckland collector James Wallace commissioned a large sterling silver table service from the then Auckland-based silversmith, Peter Woods. The Wallace Service comprises over 130 pieces of cutlery, functional and decorative objects. The centerpiece, which is over a metre long, is an illuminated three dimensional representation of Auckland and the Waitemata Harbour including the city foreshore, the Customs House, Rangitoto Island and the Harbour Bridge.

The Jar Known as Pinchmetight

19 December 2004 - 19 December 2004

The Jar Known as Pinchmetight is an installation of works from the collection of maker Denis O'Connor. These works are shards from pots that did not survive the rigours of the firing process. Placed in a museum case, these works that in one sense ‘did not work' - but ‘do work' as beautiful and informative objects - contest the idea of works being ‘of museum quality', an accolade bestowed on the most accomplished of works.

Levi Borgstrom

19 September 2004 - 19 September 2004

Levi Borgstrom's entry in the 1986 edition of The Craft Hunters Guide - written by Fiona Thompson and Len Castle - is to the point; it simply says "Maker of spoons of distinction". Borgstrom was a maker who made just one type of object, hand carved wooden spoons. His lifetime's experience as a wood carver and whittler, his single focus as a maker and the traditional knowledge of earlier generations all converge in these spoons to make them works of great presence.