New Zealand 2026

Title: Taharaki Skyside
Commissioner: Kent Gardner, Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa
Curator: Felicity Milburn, Chloe Cull
Exhibitor: Fiona Pardington

“Taharaki Skyside” is a body of large-scale photographic portraits of taxidermy specimens of birds native to Aotearoa New Zealand and the Southern Ocean, made in natural history museum collections across the country. The works depict species ranging from the critically endangered to the long extinct, as well as rarer colour morphs and genetic variations of surviving species. Shot against atmospheric backdrops, the images sit at the intersection of natural history, colonial critique, and Māori spiritual tradition.

For Pardington, who is of Māori and Scottish descent, the project operates on several levels simultaneously. In Māori culture, birds (manu) are messengers from the spirit world and cultural treasures whose dignity is inalienable; the exhibition reclaims these specimens from the colonial context of the museum vitrine, restoring their individual presence and significance. The work also interrogates how natural history collections classify and frame narratives around Indigenous communities and their legacies. A secondary reference runs through the series: Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, with its notion of spiritual messengers guiding a journey through otherworldly realms, and the placement of Purgatory on a Southern Hemisphere island – a geography that resonates with Aotearoa’s own sense of liminality and threshold.