There is something special that happens when a forest is brought into a gallery space.
Like much good art, the current exhibition Te Ngahere transforms the room it inhabits. The exhibition, in the Waipuna Toi | Community Space of Toi Mahara, shows diorama art and poetry by sixty tamariki from Waikanae School inspired by their time in Ngā Manu Nature Reserve. In the unique ability that dioramas have to present the natural world or far away places as both real and imagined, Te Ngahere makes a new forest inside the gallery.
Dioramas have a long history in the arts and natural sciences. They are made in a variety of ways, but often show either a life-size or scaled down scene of the natural world or events in history. Set up like a stage, dioramas usually fit within defined borders of a box or frame and make use of two-dimensional backdrops combined with detailed life-like models and figures. In natural history museums, dioramas were often large scenes of the natural world that held real taxidermied specimens and were structurally part of the museum space.
Brought inside, the forest carries with it the wairua and tangled rhythms of the natural world. This is what is captured by the tamariki of Waikanae School; what a forest feels like, how it moves, how it plays, how it generates life and what it looks like when you pay attention.
Three layers of dioramas make up the forest scene in Te Ngahere: the forest floor, the body of the forest and the canopies. At the lower level, insects roam, mushrooms bloom in darkened corners and kiwi scuttle. Life seems rich, moist with mysterious happenings. The middle section of the exhibition is where trees twist and climb, where we can see the textures in branches and life from the floor creeps upwards. The top layer is where the birds are, where you can see the sky. You see creatures, mycelium and amorphous organic matter sharing space, crossing the boundaries of their shoe box frames.
Together these creations act as a window between a gallery and the taiao of Kāpiti. And it feels appropriate that the artwork which is a glimpse into the forest is displayed in Waipuna Toi, which is itself a kind of window into our community. Both the exhibition and the gallery are opportunities for us to look into the world through the eyes of others.
Exhibited alongside Te Ngahere, was a collection of portraits painted one morning on donated canvases as part of a ten-week dementia-friendly art programme supported by Dementia Wellington, facilitated by artist and architect Hester Paul. The previous show presented paintings, collage, assemblage, textile and video work by local artists working from The Holtom’s Art Studios in Paekākāriki. From December 2024 to April of this year, a collection of paintings by Sue Soo spanning years of creative output were exhibited in the gallery. Soo was prolific and although she painted compulsively, she did not self identify as an artist until being discovered and persuaded by art historian Jill Trevelyan. Like the students of Waikanae School, Soo painted on recycled or ‘unwanted’ materials, creating vibrant, twirling scenes of everyday life and dancers. Soo left over 600 paintings following her death in 2016.
With a focus on community, Waipuna Toi, the first space you encounter when visiting Toi Mahara, behaves not unlike a forest network, bringing together different people, different skills and different goals. This feeling of interrelation is equally captured in the Te Ngahere exhibition and the ongoing partnership between Toi Mahara and Ngā Manu Nature Reserve supported by the Philipp Family Foundation.
The current exhibition runs until November 23rd and is an opportunity to look at the natural world through the eyes of tamariki and to glimpse perspectives from the Kāpiti community.
by Hannah van Seventer