Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington will open its winter season with three new exhibitions. Two solo projects, The Choice by George Watson and ‘Ua Tafa Mai Ata: Matāli’i ki Wainuiātea by Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta, are accompanied by a group show, Not a solitary feeling. While developed as distinct projects, each exhibition contends with inherited histories in different ways, and proposes a critical framework attuned to the challenges of the present. Thresholds, gates, the eye of the storm—these works collectively offer moments of reflection, and the recognition of larger forces at play.
In the gallery foyer, artist and architect Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta presents the sculptural installation ‘Ua Tafa Mai Ata: Matāli’i ki Wainuiātea. The title connects to the artist’s Sāmoan gafa (whakapapa) and alludes to the ata or morning light that cuts through the darkness, similar to the capacity of art to reveal that which may be less visible or material. The work takes the form of an ātea—a public forum, most commonly referring to the open area in front of the wharenui where visitors are welcomed and issues are debated. The installation includes low seats made from charred timber, a gauze-like textile canopy, a foundation of bricks formerly used in Wellington’s Te Ngākau Civic Square. The work becomes a platform from which one might, metaphorically or in more tangible ways, connect or reconnect with the expansiveness of Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. Heta’s project—this third version of which is presented for Adam Art Gallery by guest curator Israel Randell—is a built structure designed for hosting people, and foregrounds the role of talanoa or dialogue in the navigation of our multiple and pressing relationships to the ocean that surrounds us.
George Watson’s artwork The Choice is her most physically substantial project to date, constructed primarily with found and prefabricated materials. Working with metal, textiles, artificial dust, text, and processes of sculptural subtraction, Watson’s installation brings together seemingly divergent references—to the farm, the villa, and the 19th-century novel—within a larger narrative about colonial inheritances, and the ways that such histories haunt us in the present. The work comprises large, galvanised steel farm gates, the removal of gallery wall panels to reveal the internal structure, and the addition of ornate Victorian era fretwork. The title references Robyn Kahukiwa’s 1974 painting, The Choice, a work that Watson has returned to frequently in her own thinking on urban migration of Māori in the 1970s, and its legacies in the present.
Not a solitary feeling is a group exhibition of works that disrupt our image of the past and open possibilities for altering how we might think about, anticipate, and imagine the future. Featuring a selection of works from Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection alongside loaned works, the exhibition explores how artworks may open perceived boundaries between human and more-than-human, planet and atmosphere. Including sculpture, painting, video and photography, the exhibition pays attention to the atmosphere as a commons, considering bodies which we might not see but can sense and feel, such as wind, weather, water, and the air in-between, and what it means to be a community of which this planet is a part. Not a solitary feelingcompletes a three-part series of exhibitions which unpack the possibilities for an environmentally-considered art history of Aotearoa, co-curated by Professor of Art History and Environmental Humanities, Susan Ballard, and former Kaiwhakarākei Curator Collections at Adam Art Gallery, Sophie Thorn.
Details of the exhibitions
‘Ua Tafa Mai Ata: Matāli’i ki Wainuiātea
Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta
Curated by Israel Randell
The Choice
George Watson
Curated by Abby Cunnane and Keani Rewha
Not a solitary feeling
Fiona Connor, Colin McCahon, Ross Hemera, Brett Graham, Mark Harvey, Ayesha Green, Yuki Kihara, Kate Newby, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Christine Hellyar, Tanya Ashken, Melissa Macleod.
Curated by Susan Ballard and Sophie Thorn
4 July–11 October 2026
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery
Opening hours
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery
11am–5pm Tuesday–Sunday
FREE ENTRY
adamartgallery.nz