Te Tuhi

Te Tuhi Our exhibitions are free and open to all. We also rely on your support. To find out more, please visit tetuhi.art/support.

Embedded in its community for 50 years, Te Tuhi is a platform for contemporary art that is locally engaged, regionally responsive and internationally ambitious. Te Tuhi is committed to contemporary art that is locally engaged, regionally responsive and internationally ambitious, with a strong awareness of social, political and environmental issues. Our annual programme includes four seasons of gr

oup and solo exhibitions, live events, and regular offsite projects including billboards on Reeves Road and at Parnell Station. Te Tuhi is an independent charitable trust with principal funding from Auckland Council and the Contemporary Art Foundation.

Current exhibitions | ‘Rona' by Sonic HaporiAs the pūrākau goes, ‘Rona’ was a wahine of great mana. One night when the m...
30/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘Rona' by Sonic Hapori

As the pūrākau goes, ‘Rona’ was a wahine of great mana. One night when the moon was full, she went to fill her tahā with water. On her way down the path, a cloud passed over Rakaunui, casting a shadow over her path. ‘Rona’ fell and cursed te Marama. Filled with rage, te Marama snatched her from Papatūānuku. With her tahā in one hand, she reached out for a ngaio tree nearby. When the moon is full, you can see ‘Rona’ holding her tahā and clinging to the ngaio tree, listening to ‘fat dubs’.

“Kia mahara ki te hē o Rona”

“Remember the fault of Rona”

Here we celebrate ‘Rona’ and her fortitude to break rules, remembering her hē as a tohu for radical imaginings. Over the time of Matariki, she evolves from a tahā suspended from te orokohanga with an umbilical cord of muka connecting her to a pito of sound seen as a speaker, into a staunch sound system that will be listening to you until she’s ready to sing.

‘Rona' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Open daily, 9am-5pm – Free entry

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Sonic Hapori’s work.

Images:
1: Sonic Hapori
'Rona', 2026 (installation view)
hue, copper, muka, speaker
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
photo by Sam Hartnett

2-4: Sonic Hapori
'Rona', 2026 (detail)
hue, copper, muka, speaker
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
photo by Sam Hartnett


Current exhibitions | ‘Kwv Txhiaj in the Valley of Widows' by Pao Houa Her‘Kwv Txhiaj’ (pronounced kue-chee-ah) refers t...
29/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘Kwv Txhiaj in the Valley of Widows' by Pao Houa Her

‘Kwv Txhiaj’ (pronounced kue-chee-ah) refers to Hmong song poetry. It is a Hmong oral tradition and a storytelling technology. Originally performed in pairs as a call-and-response, it takes an extemporaneous form. Rooted in ancient courtship rites, this song poetry is also performed for occasions such as commemoration, healing, and moral teaching within the community. At times, audiences may even suggest themes for the song poetry. This improvisational nature inevitably carries a sense of uniqueness. The duration of a performance is variable and can last for hours depending on the will of the song poet who initiates it.

Throughout modern and contemporary history, kwv txhiaj has been appropriated multiple times. Following the immeasurable loss of Hmong males conscripted to resist communism in Vietnam during the Cold War, a thriving kwv txhiaj audio cassette industry emerged among survivors in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s, a travel documentary VHS industry appeared, offering guided tours of the ‘teb chaw’ (pronounced tay-chaw which translated as land-place) to Hmong diasporas traveling to Laos. Her remembers these VHS tours playing in her family’s living room in St. Paul, Minnesota. Between the narrated collages of sacred and secular landscapes, kwv txhiaj flowed as a soundtrack.

Passing through the isolation of the pandemic, this song poetry began to be performed even more actively within the Hmong community-especially among the younger generation-through social media platforms by rappers and classical voice practitioners. Near the end of the pandemic, the sudden death of Her’s spouse gave kwv txhiaj a different meaning for her.

In this way, ‘Kwv Txhiaj’ touches upon Pao Houa Her’s sense of eternal community, a land that can never be permanently reconnected, and people with whom a meeting cannot be promised. In the video, the performers continue their response without facing each other. The sporadic glitches that appear throughout the video further imply the loss and invisibility of certain entities. The combination of melodic lines, mono-syllabic words, and individual breaths creates a tonal play that conveys a singular musical emotion, reaching even those who do not speak Hmong.

‘Kwv Txhiaj in the Valley of Widows' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Open daily, 9am-5pm – Free entry

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Pao’s work.

Images:
1-3: Pao Houa Her
'Kwv Txhiaj in the Valley of Widows', 2023 (installation view)
single channel video, colour, sound
24 mins
courtesy of the artist and Bockley Gallery
photo by Sam Hartnett


Current exhibitions | ‘The Crystal Palace' by Ilish Thomas‘The Crystal Palace’ traces the site of The Crystal Palace The...
29/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘The Crystal Palace' by Ilish Thomas

‘The Crystal Palace’ traces the site of The Crystal Palace Theatre in Maungawhau, Tāmaki Makaurau. The artist Ilish Thomas’s grandfather purchased a stake in this theatre in the 1970s, now, two generations later, the cinema has been consigned to oblivion amidst urbanisation and the burgeoning discourse of property possession.

Thomas’s film captures the interior and exterior of the theatre alongside the chudel, a female ghost from Gujarati folklore. A voice, sounding like a shadow of the past and a phantom of the future, asks the chudel for the way in. Like a beam of light emanating from a projector, the chudel wanders through the theatre, projecting herself onto the empty seats and overlapping with the building itself. Through the figure of the chudel, who in folklore often suffers a tragic death and returns to seek retribution against surviving kin through property or finances, Thomas revisits the haunting nature of 'property possession.'

Mirroring the chime that opened the video, at the end of the film, a sudden chime of a bell resonates like an awakening from the dream of cinema, leaving a lingering echo in our ears as it vanishes along with the chudel.

'The Crystal Palace' was originally commissioned by The Physics Room, November 2025, and is presented at Te Tuhi in May 2026 as an expanded installation, with thanks to Jane Wallace and The Physics Room.

‘The Crystal Palace' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Open daily, 9am-5pm – Free entry

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Ilish’s work.

Images:
1, 3: Ilish Thomas
'The Crystal Palace', 2025 (installation view)
black and white Super 8 film converted to digital, sound
6 mins 59 secs
'Chudelnum Thiyetara, the never ending beginnings', 2025 (installation view)
screen printed cotton netting
photo by Sam Hartnett

2: Ilish Thomas
'The Crystal Palace', 2025 (installation view)
black and white Super 8 film converted to digital, sound
6 mins 59 secs
photo by Sam Hartnett


Current exhibitions | ‘14 miles north-east' by Brendan KittoNear the end of 1993, Brendan Kitto’s family moved from Whan...
28/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘14 miles north-east' by Brendan Kitto

Near the end of 1993, Brendan Kitto’s family moved from Whanganui to Auckland. Before the final relocation, Kitto’s father commuted between the two cities, and Kitto often visited his father’s office in Newmarket. To a twelve-year-old boy from Whanganui, visiting the “Big Smoke” was no different from an overseas trip. By familiarising himself with the fast pace of Newmarket and the bustle of Auckland’s CBD, he eased the apprehension of leaving his familiar hometown.

However, the family eventually settled in Pakuranga, an eastern suburb of Auckland. Kitto recalls that it felt “as though I had moved a second time.” Pakuranga is only 22 kilometres southeast of the Auckland city centre, yet its atmosphere felt quite different. It retained palpable colonial foundations and lacked a distinct urban character. Consequently, he spent his youth with little interest in the suburb that had become his home.

As urban sprawl intensified, Kitto began to photographically document the increasingly unsettled areas of Howick and Pakuranga, rediscovering both the current transformations and the landscapes he had overlooked for decades. Through the photographs in ‘14 miles north-east’, he revisits unseen memories and the unresolvable personal and collective emotions that lie beneath the surface of the images.

‘14 miles north-east' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Open daily, 9am-5pm – Free entry

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Brendan’s work.

Images:
1: Brendan Kitto
14 miles north-east, 2026 (installation view)
18 inkjet prints, 290gsm fibre pearl paper
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
photo by Sam Hartnett

2: Brendan Kitto
'Ōhuiarangi/Pigeon Mountain, Half Moon Bay, January 2025', 2026 (installation view)
inkjet prints, 290gsm fibre pearl paper
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
photo by Sam Hartnett

3-4: Brendan Kitto
14 miles north-east, 2026 (installation view)
Te Tuhi Billboards (Pakuranga)
inkjet billboard prints
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
photo by Sam Hartnett


Current exhibitions | ‘Free to Choose' by Bahar Noorizadeh‘Free to Choose’ is an operatic financial sci-fi (fi-fi), narr...
28/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘Free to Choose' by Bahar Noorizadeh

‘Free to Choose’ is an operatic financial sci-fi (fi-fi), narrated by Milton Friedman, in which we encounter the credit banking system as a time-travelling machine.

In 1997, in post-economic crash Hong Kong, Philip Tose, ex-race car driver and CEO of an insolvent company, travels to the future to borrow a lump sum from his older self and rescue his business. Hong Kong in 2047 turns out not to be very different from the Hong Kong of “One Country, Two systems”. Centralisation has not eradicated nepotism, and activism has become rating activism: young people advocating for free time travel for everyone, including the untrustworthy and the discredited of a corrupt credit system.

In the background is superstar economist and real-life evangelist Milton Friedman’s myth of neoliberalism as represented by Hong Kong: in his long career as a market ideologue and advisor to the conservative governments of the US and the UK, Friedman hailed the city as the modern exemplar of free markets, needless of heavy-handed government planning and control. “If you want to see Capitalism in action, you should go to Hong Kong.”

Much like the economic worlds built in metaverse and gaming platforms today, Hong Kong was the testing ground for the parable of neoliberalism. Once certified in its advanced colony, neoliberalism would return to shape the economic policies of Western powers in the decades to come. Despite once claiming the highest rate of public housing in the world, Hong Kong now holds one of the deepest wealth gaps and one of the most lucrative real estate markets on the planet.

‘Free to Choose' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Open daily, 9am-5pm – Free entry

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Bahar’s work.

Images:
1-3: Bahar Noorizadeh
'Free to Choose', 2023 (installation view)
single-channel video, stereo sound
36 mins
in collaboration with Rudá Babau and Waste Paper Opera (Klara Kofen, James Oldham, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Anna Palmer)
photo by Sam Hartnett


Current exhibitions | ‘Western Line 2003' by Allan McDonaldThe images in ‘Western Line 2003’ were captured during a peri...
28/05/2026

Current exhibitions | ‘Western Line 2003' by Allan McDonald

The images in ‘Western Line 2003’ were captured during a period when Allan McDonald was a frequent user of the train service. He describes the areas surrounding the tracks at that time as a form of 'terrain vague' (1), which functioned as a semi-wild, unmonitored zone where young people would gather, do their thing, and simply hang out. During that era, Tāmaki Makaurau was undergoing widespread commodification, forcing these “urban gaps” to seek their own means of survival. Having long documented the traces within spaces marginalized by urban development and changing environments, McDonald presents landscapes that offer a response both opposite and somehow strangely similar to the transformations of that time.
________________________

(1) Terrain vague: A concept proposed by architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales, referring to abandoned or derelict urban spaces that lack a clear identity or function.

‘Western Line 2003' is on view until 19 July 2026.

Te Tuhi Billboards (Parnell Station), 25 Cheshire Street, Parnell
Available to view 24/7 – Free

Follow the link in bio for more images and to read about Allan’s work.

Images:
1: Allan McDonald
'Western Line 2003', 2026 (installation view)
Te Tuhi Billboards (Parnell Station)
inkjet billboard prints
photo by Sam Hartnett

2: Allan McDonald
'Kingsland (tunnel)', 2003 (installation view)
Te Tuhi Billboards (Parnell Station)
inkjet billboard prints
photo by Sam Hartnett

3: Allan McDonald
'Morningside (photographer)', 2003 (installation view)
Te Tuhi Billboards (Parnell Station)
inkjet billboard prints
photo by Sam Hartnett


Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday for the opening of our latest exhibitions at Te Tuhi.A huge thank you to...
27/05/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday for the opening of our latest exhibitions at Te Tuhi.

A huge thank you to the exhibiting artists, Allan McDonald, Bahar Noorizadeh, Brendan Kitto, Ilish Thomas, Pao Houa Her and Sonic Hapori for sharing their incredible work with us and our audiences.

A special thanks to Te Tuhi’s own Fei’s Blossom Café (Fei's Blossom) for the delicious kimchi fried rice and dumplings.

The exhibitions will remain on view until 19 July 2026.

We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Te Tuhi presents six new exhibitions opening at a special event on Saturday 23 May, including work by Allan McDonald, Ba...
21/05/2026

Te Tuhi presents six new exhibitions opening at a special event on Saturday 23 May, including work by Allan McDonald, Bahar Noorizadeh, Brendan Kitto, Ilish Thomas, Pao Houa Her and Sonic Hapori.

Everyone is welcome to join in celebrating with artists and curators from 4pm.

Saturday 23 May, 4–6pm
Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Rd Pakuranga, Tāmaki Makaurau
Everyone welcome!
Follow the link in bio for more details.

Installed at CREA on the Guidecca, Venice until the end of the Venice Biennale in November 2026, 'Pouhono' created by Ke...
20/05/2026

Installed at CREA on the Guidecca, Venice until the end of the Venice Biennale in November 2026, 'Pouhono' created by Kereama Taepa, is a physical connection between continents, cultures and creative practices.

Designed to be viewed in the round, this work references the many atua who have oversight of both the natural world and the digital world. The two figures facing the lagoon and out to the ocean represent Hinemoana and Tangaroa - the male and female atua of the sea. The figures facing Venice are Te Uira and Hineteiwaiwa, two atua associated with the digital world. They govern electricity and binary code and offer another mode of unification between peoples on opposite sides of the globe.

With the help of Exhibition Care and Veronica Green, the impressive structure of this work was fabricated in Venice and floated to the CREA site. So many hands have helped to make this happen.

Paerangi: Venice has been generously supported by Creative New Zealand, and Jenny and Andrew Smith.

Te Tuhi

Upcoming Exhibition | Sonic Hapori: Rona“Kia mahara ki te hē o ‘Rona’”“Remember the fault of ‘Rona’”Here we celebrate ‘R...
16/05/2026

Upcoming Exhibition | Sonic Hapori: Rona

“Kia mahara ki te hē o ‘Rona’”

“Remember the fault of ‘Rona’”

Here we celebrate ‘Rona’ and her fortitude to break rules, remembering her hē as a tohu for radical imaginings. Over the time of Matariki, she evolves from a tahā suspended from te orokohanga with an umbilical cord of raupō connecting her to a pito of sound seen as a speaker, into a staunch sound system that will be listening to you until she’s ready to sing.

24 May – 19 July 2026
Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Opening celebration: Sat 23 May, 4-6pm – everyone welcome!
Follow the link in bio for more details.

Image: Sonic Hapori. Image courtesy of the artist.

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21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Auckland
2010

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Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

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