About Te Whare Hēra

Te Whare Hēra is an artist and community programme that is partnered by the Wellington City Council and Massey University that is open to practitioners working in the field of contemporary art. We bring artists to create work and engage with our communities in Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington.

The Te Whare Hēra programme supports artists to research, develop and produce a new and innovative contemporary art projects. The residency provides artists with the time and space to complete such a body of work and to examine, map out, experiment, make connections, exchange ideas, and collaborate. Residencies run between three weeks to six months and during this time visiting artists contribute to art communities in Pōneke and to the wider cultural life of the city. Through partnerships and public programmes, there is focus on promoting a knowledge and understanding of contemporary art and on connecting artists and their practice with our local communities.

Artists will also contribute vitally to the academic programmes of Whiti o Rehua School of Art exposing students to their creative processes and cross-disciplinary practices.

The primary objectives of the residency programme are to:

stimulate the production of high quality, innovative, creative work in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington which can be shared with Wellingtonians and visitors to the city;
reinforce Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington as an arts leader, and a place where contemporary art is recognised and debated;
contribute to the cultural lives of our community;
partner with sector colleagues to enable the best opportunities for the resident or community artists’ work to be experienced by audiences.

The programme is a Massey University College of Creative Arts, Whiti o Rehua (School of Art) and Wellington City Council initiative.

The Te Whare Hēra team

Associate Professor Emma Febvre-Richards is the Te Whare Hēra’s residency project lead and committee chair. Emma lectures at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, co-founded Drawing Open in 2016 and is director of MeDArT, science drawing and technology for dementia research.

Amber-Jayne Bain is the current assistant for Te Whare Hēra. Amber-Jayne recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University. Her art practice works primarily with photography and moving image, and jostles for time with her commercial / advertising photography business. ajbain.com

Te Whare Hēra Committee, alongside the above team

Professor Huhana Smith (PhD) affiliates to Ngāti Tukorehe/ Raukawa ki te Tonga. She is Head of Whiti o Rehua School of Art, spanning Māori Visual Arts, Photography and Fine Arts. Huhana is an artist, curator and Iwi researcher for large-scale environmental and climate change research projects that benefit Māori land holdings. She is a member of Te Waituhi ā Nuku: Drawing Ecologies, which functions within Drawing Open: An International Research Community founded by Associate Professor Emma Febrve Richards and Monique Jansen Senior Lecturer from University of Technology, Auckland (until February 2023). As part of a longer engagement between Govett Brewster Art Gallery and Toirauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey, Huhana and Monique became a key part of an artist/regenerative agriculturalist team for the Kuku Biochar Project within Te Au: Liquid Constituencies. See https://govettbrewster.com/exhibitions/te-au-liquid-constituencies for more information on the action-orientated exhibition/installation as research method. See also Kuku Biochar Project and Kuku Biochar Project May 2022 for more information on biochar.

Dr Rebecca Rice is Curator Historical New Zealand Art at Te Papa Tongarewa. Her research develops the critical discourse on art from the colonial era, with a particular interest in the histories of collecting, exhibition and display. Current research projects include nineteenth-century female botanical artists, the visual culture of the New Zealand Wars, and the impact of impressionism on New Zealand artists at home and abroad. In her curatorial practice, writing and research she seeks to locate moments of intersection between historical and contemporary art.

Katie Taylor-Duke is Senior Arts Advisor – Projects in the Creative Capital team at Wellington City Council. She works in a strategic delivery capacity on projects across Council and the city that deliver to Aho Tini, Council’s Arts, Culture and Creativity Strategy. Projects are focused on ensuring access to the arts and on increasing opportunities for artists. Key roles include leading Council’s pakiTara toi art on walls programme, supporting artist residencies and advising on arts funding.

Kingsley Baird is Acting Head of School, School of Art at Massey University.

A visual artist, writer, and professor of fine arts at the Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Kingsley’s research is an investigation of memory, memorialisation, and remembrance, primarily in relation to war, culture, national identity, mythology, place, and new conceptual, aesthetic, and material ways of creating memory forms.

Israel Randell is a multi-disciplinary artist of Cook Island (Rarotonga) and Māori (Tainui, Ngāti Kahungunu) descent, who explores the notions of innovation as tradition through installations, performances, and spatial activations.

A glimpse of our spaces at Te Whare Hēra

Clyde Quay Wharf extending into Te Whanganui-a-Tara, with the Te Whare Hēra residence at the northernmost tip.

North end of the wharf, looking toward gallery entrance

Clyde Quay Wharf, with Te Whare Hēra at the northernmost tip

Clyde Quay Wharf as viewed from across the waterfront