Author: Alex Grace, Communications and Relationships Manager

This spring, The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt has a collection of shows that are perfect for quiet reflection and lively debate, followed by a sumptuous treat at the new café, Bellbird Eatery.

With a full fleet of new exhibitions exploring our impact on the earth, our heritage and our history, a visit to The Dowse is time well spent.

“This season we have brought voices from around Aotearoa and Australia into the gallery,” said Director Courtney Johnston. “While each show is refreshingly different, each also addresses urgent and important issues. From the allocation of resources, to kaitiakitanga of land, self-expression and whakapapa, each of these shows is an opportunity to think through some of the most fundamental questions of our time.”

“These exhibitions show our commitment to fostering the creation of new art, to bringing the best of international art to New Zealand, and to sharing our collection. This spring sees everything from contemporary jewellery to documentary photography at The Dowse. We encourage visitors to make the most of this opportunity to see this wide range of contemporary art before we reshape the museum completely with our ambitious summer project, a survey show of New Zealand photographer Gavin Hipkins, which will be on an unprecedented scale for The Dowse.”

Full show and café details included below
High resolution images available here.

For more information, images and interviews, please contact
Alexandra Grace, Communications and Relationships Manager
Alex.grace@huttcity.govt.nz
0226242152

Nicholas Mangan: Limits to Growth
19 Aug – 12 Nov 2017

Limits to Growth is the first survey exhibition of Australian artist Nicholas Mangan to be held in Aotearoa New Zealand. With a strong research base in history, science and visual culture, Mangan's work addresses a range of themes, including the ongoing impacts of colonialism, humanity's relationship with the natural environment, contemporary consumptive cultures and the complex dynamics of the global political economy.

Fiona Clark: Te Iwi o Te Wāhi Kore
15 Jul – 05 Nov 2017

For over 40 years, Fiona Clark’s style of documentary photography has continued to capture the essence of the communities she has been a part of, so they can be better understood. Her photographs from the 1980–81 series Te Iwi o Te Wāhi Kore and more recent images taken in the 2000s reflect the activities, concerns and taonga of tangata whenua of Taranaki.

Maureen Lander: Flat-Pack Whakapapa
15 Jul – 05 Nov 2017

Just as whakapapa (genealogy) reflects someone’s lineage and biology, the starting line of a kete determines how its patterning and size will develop. In Flat-Pack Whakapapa, Maureen Lander will create three installations that explore the connections between whakapapa and raranga (Māori weaving).

Handshake 3: Reflect
05 Aug – 03 Dec 2017

To ‘reflect’ can mean both to mirror or to cast back and respond. In this exhibition, 12 jewellers who are a part of the Handshake project have been invited to draw connections between the term ‘reflect’ and the self-reflexive nature of contemporary jewellery, which both mimics and counteracts its traditional and commercial counterparts.

Bellbird Eatery

We are delighted to welcome Bellbird Eatery to The Dowse.

Our newest addition is modern and upmarket with an emphasis on fresh seasonal fare sourced locally in the Hutt Valley. The tap beer is brewed locally, coffee roasted locally and bread baked locally. The menu features an eclectic mix of old school favourites along with some new dishes with a twist!

There is also a supa dupa kids menu on offer, with a not too obvious healthy slant.

Weekdays: 8AM–4PM
(late night Thurs & Fri, open till 8PM)
Weekends: 9AM–4PM
bellbirdeatery.co.nz
Check out their delicious menu here.

Summer season preview

Gavin Hipkins: The Domain
25 Nov 2017 – 11 Mar 2018

The Domain will be an expansive survey of Hipkins’ work, bringing together 25 years of art-making. It will reveal an ever-evolving practice that returns again and again a set of core concerns: photography as the predominant form of modernist visual communication; the nation state and national identity; exploration and colonisation in the modern era; and how social and political ideologies visually shape the world we live in.