Activating Te Uru was held at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery to celebrate the opening weekend of Te Uru after two years of construction.
Preparation for this exhibition began in mid-2014 as we sought works that could both activate and, in turn, be activated by the architectural features of the gallery spaces that the show occupied: Galleries Two and Three. The five works selected for the exhibition were: Scott Eady’s Boat Buoy (from the James Wallace Arts Trust), Gregor Kregar’s Thinker 3 (courtesy of the artist and Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland), Andy Leleisi’uao’s Waking up to the Obscurity People (courtesy of the artist and Pierre Peeters Gallery, Auckland), Shannon Novak’s String Section (courtesy of the artist) and Robin White and Ruha Fifita’s Rangitahua (The University of Auckland Art Collection).
Visitor engagement with the works and their spaces was encouraged by a number of special events that took place during the weekend. These included:
Saturday:
Official Civic Ceremony: Gallery opened by Mayor Len Brown
Architect’s tour: Julian Mitchell
APO Young Achievers: Arcus Quartet
Director’s tour
Tango Puoro performance by Jeremy Hantler
Special Members’ Event
Art industry opening celebration
Sunday:
Architect’s tour: Julie Stout and Claire Natusch
Artist talk: Amy Howden-Chapman in Gallery 4
Taonga Puoro performance by Riki Bennett
Rooftop performance by Labretta Suede and the Motel 6
Our Education team also ran a Learning Centre drop-in station from 11am-3pm on both Saturday and Sunday. During these hours, visitors of all ages were invited to make badges, postcards and take part in a collaborative artwork in our education gallery. This activity ensured that the exhibitions on during our opening weekend reached a broad audience, with events catered for families and arts professionals alike.
Te Uru is delighted to have been able to host an exhibition of this calibre and we’re extremely grateful to all those people and organisations that helped make this happen. Without their support, we would not have been able to make this exhibition available to the 2110 people who got to enjoy it.