In Inhabited Space, Louise Keen and Faye Norman explore the theme of home from personal viewpoints. Louise’s handstitched assemblages transform found materials into sculptures that comment on the fragile nature of domesticity and belonging.

Faye’s mixed media and photography interpret everyday accessories and quiet moments within interior spaces. Their works blend abstraction with the everyday and invite viewers to reflect on their own relationship with their surroundings. They highlight the delicate, personal, and often surreal qualities of domestic life.

A troupe of puppets gather in Circus of Ruminations. Sarah Cowie works with puppetry and video, exploring how digital media and materiality come together, particularly in the age of social media. Influenced by her own experiences, Sarah’s puppets explore themes of anxiety while also evoking a sense of joy and comfort. Circus of Ruminations explores the strange, daunting, and fascinating side of social connection, both through social media and in person, relating the chaos and whimsy to the circus.

Sonya Nagels’ textile works explore memory, migration, and coded language through salvaged materials and traditional quilt-making. Her quilts both reimagine passive-aggressive office speak, and reflect on personal family history.

Drawing on maritime codes, patchwork traditions, and obscured meanings, Nagels plays with softness and sharpness, sentiment and sarcasm. Her quilts ask us to consider how we communicate and what we hold onto.

Fur Coat No Knickers advocates for a chance to rebel, to be seen, and to embrace a bold, fierce, and unapologetic approach to life. Debbie Tubb's work challenges the conventions of painting by taking it apart and reconstructing, using fabric, thread, and a sliver of irony. FCNK makes playful provocations while reflecting on past and present gender bias in art.

In 8-Bit Aotearoa, Simon Thomas Nicholls examines 1980s Aotearoa New Zealand through the visual vernacular of early home computing. Using 8-bit typography, text-based interfaces, and low-resolution aesthetics, the work engages with collective memory, referencing political discourse, pop culture, and everyday language shaped by a nation in transition. Nostalgia is both the subject and the medium, inviting critical reflection on mythologised pasts.

Life on Rugs is a tactile and colour-rich exploration of identity, emotion, and visual storytelling through the unexpected medium of hand-tufted rugs. Each piece functions as both object and image, merging the traditionally decorative with the unapologetically expressive.

Using bold colours and surreal imagery, the rugs explore Cecilia's Italian upbringing, a lifetime of movement across different countries, and the beautiful absurdity of daily life. Each rug reflects people encountered, fleeting conversations, and half-remembered dreams.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

You’ve heard of Magical Girls. You’ve heard of Knights. But have you heard of the Medieval Magical Girl? Drawing from their experience as Japanese/Pākehā, Jessica Miku blends the sparkle of magical girl anime with the lore of medieval chivalry to conjure a hybrid-heroine of myth and glitter.

Weaving the arc of the Hero’s Journey together with ecological fantasy, they explore tenderness and belonging, creating lush worlds of quiet power and emotional resonance – a place where magic is ancient, and the future is forged from the past.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

Talismans is an exhibition where jewellery and sculpture meet. These wearable pieces are not just adornments but living objects imbued with meaning, created to protect, comfort, and guide. The exhibition explores jewellery as both a sculptural art form and as a medium to communicate ideas and memory. Each talisman invites viewers to consider their own intimate connections with the adornments they wear as expressions of self, culture, and place.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

Inspired by her early immigrant experiences in New Zealand and recent residency in Gunma, Japan, Sena Park’s installation reflects moments of cultural dissonance, hesitation, and subtle shifts in perception. The work is presented in small window-box-like displays; evoking travel cases, tucked-away souvenirs, and objects stored in wardrobes. Through playful arrangements and unexpected juxtapositions, the work captures minor errors and surprises, revealing how dissonance can quietly make sense.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

Presented as part of Auckland arts festival’s theme of home, this exhibition reimagines Tamaki Makaurau through works that blur the line between lived and imagined spaces. Through vibrant vignettes, familiar scenes become portals where culture, identity, and memory collide to reframe “home” as a living narrative.