Student Art Exhibition Puts Partnership In The Frame

Close to 40
students from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of
Canterbury’s Ilam School
of Fine Arts and Ara Institute of Canterbury are
exhibiting their work at the central Christchurch gallery
this month.

Whakawhanaungatanga
2025 is the second time that Ara and the University of
Canterbury (UC) have collaborated in this way. The first
Whakawhanaungatanga, in 2023, was one of the most visited
exhibitions at CoCA that year.

The name refers to the
process of building and sustaining multi-layered, flexible
and dynamic relationships, and the inaugural show came from
a desire to foster creative collaboration between Ara and UC
students.

UC Fine Arts Senior Lecturer Louise
Palmer says the exhibition is an opportunity for
students to share their work with each other, the community,
and the art world.

Third-year UC painting student
Vivien Silver-Hessey is exhibiting a ceramic piece called
Can I be Your Favourite Mug? which she says explores themes
of personhood and identity.

“It is a privilege to be
able to exhibit as a young artist, especially while still
studying, and at CoCA, one of Ōtautahi’s oldest
galleries, which has such a wide audience even beyond the
local arts community.”

Working with Ara
students on the show has been fun and a great learning
opportunity, Silver-Hessey says. “It’s exciting to make
connections and talk to them about our work and theirs.
Putting on this show has required good cooperation and
communication, and by talking about our work, seeing and
making connections between our practices, I think it’s the
beginning of the networking that’s really important in our
arts community.”

Third-year UC
sculpture student Sophie Brown is exhibiting Between Steel
and Soil, a series of digitally-altered video works
exploring the abandoned or barren parts of Eastern
Christchurch.

“I’m feeling a mix of both
excitement and nerves for the exhibition. There’s a sense of
vulnerability that comes with putting your art into a public
space.”

Brown says Whakawhanaungatanga is a vital
step in her long-term goals. “It will allow me to
experiment with how an audience interacts with a space,
sound and material. By installing in an open and shared
environment, I can investigate the immersivity of the work
through sensory experience; something that’s integral to
my practice.”

Emma Foung is showing work made in
partnership with Jack Freeman, another third-year UC graphic
design student. She says they wanted to explore New Zealand
graphic design through the local signwriting industry.
“Our work takes inspiration from what could be found
outside of a corner dairy. It’s in the form of a sandwich
board which we pasted a Coca-Cola sponsorship underneath and
then a hand-painted a ‘milk’ sign painted over the top,
inspired by local signwriters.

“By kind of inverting
the way that corporate sponsorship operates, we are trying
to comment on how corporations assert their branding over
what was a form of New Zealand graphic design.”

Ara
Kaiako (teacher) Oliver Perkins says Whakawhanaungatanga is
an opportunity for Ara ākonga (students) to make
connections outside their immediate environment.
“Hopefully these relationships become longer lasting,
providing networks of support, opportunity, and
friendship.”

Whakawhanaungatanga 2025 is at CoCA
gallery until 24 August. Some of the artists will give
public talks about their work on Thursday 14 August and
Thursday 21 August at
3pm.

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