Forrester Gallery

29/09/2026

Nau mai, haere mai ki te whare toi! We have a whole range of cool activities for the school holidays. This one in particular provides an opportunity to learn to weave with harakeke and even includes info around its tikanga 🍃✨

22/09/2026

✨Pānui: George Burns Memorial Art Exhibition

It’s the last week to check out our annual Burns exhibition - a long lasting legacy that celebrates creativity and art with young people in our rohe

Kura visits are when the gallery truly comes to life. We’re grateful for our amazing kaiako who spend so much time and passion, getting their students to contribute their mahi toi each year for the whole community to enjoy

Our educator Fiona has put together an exciting range of activities and done a great job hosting these visits. We can’t wait to see what next year has in store ✨

You can visit Burns until this Sunday at 4pm - so don’t miss out!
Our hours this week are Tuesday-Friday 10am-4pm + Sat/Sun 1.30-4.00pm

Kia pai te wiki e hoa mā!

22/09/2026

Very cool Tracey Vickers Design ✨

22/09/2026

💖✨

Sometimes the smallest objects can tell a much bigger story.

This small hand cart, once used by the Ōamaru Borough Council’s street cleaning department, is now a treasured part of the Civic Trust’s collection. It is a simple piece of Ōamaru’s everyday history.

The cart features in a painting by renowned Ōamaru artist Colin Wheeler, captured on Harbour Street as part of the everyday life of the area.

The Civic Trust, working alongside the Forrester Art Gallery, is now installing a number of artworks throughout the Heritage Precinct as permanent displays. The Colin Wheeler painting will be one of these works, adding another story to the layered history of the street.

This is the beginning of a new art trail through the town and Heritage Precinct — bringing art out of the gallery and into the streets and people’s everyday lives,

The art installations have been kindly donated to the Gallery and the Trust.

Waitaki District Council Forrester Gallery

22/09/2026

We’re working on an exciting public art project in Ōamaru, watch this space! 👀

17/09/2026

🖤🤍♥️Te Wiki o te Reo Māori - Rā Whā | Day Four 🖤🤍♥️

This year, while local kura (schools) have been visiting our whare toi (art gallery) during the George Burns Art Memorial Exhibition, they have been looking at mahi toi (artworks) such as the one above, Marilynn Webb’s ‘Shadows in the Water’, to think about how toi (art) might make us feel ✨

Our gallery kaiako (educator) Fiona has been working with the tamariki to create watercolour pictures that explore Kā Kare ā-Roto - feelings or emotions. Mauka (mountains) and uenuku (rainbows) have been a frequent inspiration as you’ll see in some of the masterpieces above ✨

✨ When you visit Forrester Gallery & Mahika Kai Mahika Toi on your next visit, you could use the pātai to ask a friend - Kei te pēhea koe? (How are you?)
They could reply kei te …….. ahau (I am feeling ……..) with an emotion in the blank such as kei te harikoa ahau (I am feeling happy) ✨

You could use some of the below emotions or feelings in the blank:
✨pai - good
✨harikoa - happy
✨pōuri - sad
✨whakamā - embarrassed
✨manahau - excited
✨Mīharo - surprised

What might be some of the emotions you feel when looking at some of your favourite kā mahi toi?

🖤🤍♥️ Kia kaha te reo Māori - hei āpōpō - we’ll look at some toi Māori within our permanent collection of over 2500 taoka ✨
Waitaki District Council

16/09/2026

🖤🤍♥️Te Wiki o te Reo Māori - Rā Toru | Day Three🖤🤍♥️

When we opened our lovely new extension in April this year, we worked with Te Rūnanga o Moeraki to incorporate elements that uplift the mana of this special place, the whenua the gallery sits upon, and some of our histories.

As our exhibition spaces were mostly named after their orientation within the building, with the alterations to many of them, they no longer made sense. For example, our former side gallery is now in the middle and our old collection stores were converted into galleries again.

We worked with Kare Tipa to determine an appropriate kaupapa which would align our spaces, linking back to our extension’s name - Mahika Kai Mahika Toi - acknowledging our gallery’s site as an important food gathering site, and now as an important space where toi can also sustain us.

As you’ll see above, our exhibition spaces are now named after native endangered and extinct manu (birds). Each ikoa (name) is specific to each space. For example, in Tarāpuka (our education room) you can see towards Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa - which is where we’d hope to see a black-billed gull. And in Pouākai (our atrium) we have views outwards and upwards, towards where we might have seen a Haast Eagle soaring about our sky, Raki✨

✨ When you visit Forrester Gallery & Mahika Kai Mahika Toi on your next visit, you’d could use the pātai to ask a friend - ka haere tātou ki hea? (Where are we going?)

You could reply ka haere tātou ki …….. (We’re going to……) with a manu from above in the blank. For example you’re going to look at the Burns Memorial Art Exhibition upstairs, so you’d reply ‘ka haere tātou ki Mātātā’ (We’re going to Mātātā)

Below are our gallery spaces with both old and new ikoa:
✨Whēkau - Main Gallery
✨Tarapirohe - Side Gallery
✨Pouākai - Atrium
✨Kāki - Community Gallery
✨Mātātā - Upstairs Gallery
✨Tarāpuka - Education Room
✨Moa - Visible Collection Galleries

We’re in the process of making these manu more prominent within our whare toi, so watch this space e hoa mā

🖤🤍♥️ Kia Kaha te reo Māori - hei āpōpō - we’ll look at some of the emotions we might express during a gallery visit
Waitaki District Council

15/09/2026

🖤🤍♥️Te Wiki o te Reo Māori - Rā Rua | Day Two🖤🤍♥️

The theme of te wiki o te reo Māori 2026 is Tāone Reo Māori - Te Reo Towns. It’s a celebration of communities who have kept te reo Māori alive. It’s also an invitation for all of Aotearoa to help the language thrive! ✨

For rā rua o te wiki - we thought we’d highlight some of the towns and places within our rohe, and think about what they mean within te ao Māori. Understanding their kupu can help us feel connected to them

You could use the pātai - ‘Nō hea koe?’ to ask someone where they are from. To respond you can use ‘Nō ……. ahau’ with your place name in the blank. If you’re from Ōamaru you’d reply Nō Ōamaru ahau ✨

Fun facts about these kupu:

✨Ōtepopo was an ancestor on the Ārai-te-uru waka which was capsized at Matakaea S**g Point. Ōtepopo Herbert is recognised as a kāika nohoaka - a traditional settlement or village

✨Ōamaru commonly means ‘place of Maru’

✨Te Awa Kākaunui is a kāika mahika kai - a food gathering place - where weka, tuna, tutu and kōaerare were gathered from

✨The name Kurow was an anglicised version of Te Kohurau, which was also named after an ancestor on the Ārai-te-uru waka

✨Moeraki can be translated to ‘a place to sleep’. Moeraki historically is the old Māori kāik near the foreshore by Tawhiroko Point. Following the fall of Kaiapoi pā by Ngāti Toa, Matiaha Tiramōrehu led a rōpū to settle at Moeraki. Onekakara is the ikoa of Port Moeraki

✨Maerewhenua is home to some of our most loved ana whakairo

✨Makotukutuku is the Māori name for Cape Wanbrow. Makotukutuku was also an an ancestor on the Ārai-te-uru waka

✨Did you know Waitaki means ‘tears of Aoraki’? Aoraki was the son of Rakinui, the sky father. Aoraki and his brothers make up Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, the Southern Alps (Aoraki is the tallest mauka)

✨ We often use the Kāi Tahu dialect in our whare toi - this means we swap out ‘ng’ sounds for ‘k’

✨To find out more about our place names and histories in Te Waipounamu - visit Kā Huru Manu - https://kahurumanu.co.nz

🖤🤍♥️ Kia Kaha te reo Māori - we will look at some of the spaces within our gallery āpōpō✨✨✨

Waitaki District Council

14/09/2026

🖤🤍♥️Te Wiki o te Reo Māori - Rā Tahi | Day One🖤🤍♥️

We thought we would kick of te wiki o te reo Māori with some common kupu you might expect to see within Forrester Gallery & Mahika Kai Mahika Toi 👀✨

You could use the phrase ‘Tirohia kā …………’ which means ‘Look at the…………’

The examples in this post could be used to fill in the blank, such as ‘Tirohia kā mahi toi’ - look at the artwork - or maybe you’ll be able to add some of your own kupu on your next visit e hoa mā!

Fun facts about these kupu:

✨ Tirohia kā tukutuku - these tukutuku panels were created by St Kevin’s College for the Burns Memorial Exhibition. They have been installed in our reception area to say haere mai as you visit our whare toi St Kevin's College, Oamaru

✨Ross Hemera’s ana whakairo installation in Pouākai (our atrium) is inspired by the amazing ana whakairo in te rohe o Waitaki - we will be following up later in te wiki with more information on his mahi toi

✨The raraka included above is one of our most recent acquisitions for our collection by Georgina May Young (Te Ūpokorehe, Te Whakatōhea, Irish) - it’s ikoa is ‘We Lean In’ and it’s made of handwoven linen and wool covered with walnut and cotton thread Georgina May Young

✨When we opened our new gallery extension in April, we were gifted the ikoa ‘Mahika Kai Mahika Toi’ by mana whenua o Moeraki - we will also talk to this later in te wiki

✨ A taniwha is often misunderstood in the western world - in te ao Māori they take on many meanings, and they are often regarded as kaitiaki or messengers

✨Pictured are some of our gallery kaitiaki - Fiona (educator), Fanua (front desk Kuīni) and Anna (curator). You might see them around our whare toi on your visits, or our lovely volunteers

✨ We often use the Kāi Tahu dialect in our whare toi - this means we swap out ‘ng’ sounds for ‘k’

🖤🤍♥️ Kia Kaha te reo Māori - we will have more throughout te wiki e te whānau ✨✨✨

Waitaki District Council