Art + Gender Panel

4:00 - 5:30pm
At the Arts House Trust, Pah Homestead

A lively panel discussion exploring the role of artists, curators and art institutions in the broader gender equality conversation. The panel will be facilitated by Dr. Dina Jezdic, accompanying her is Elisapeta Heta, Lisa Beauchamp, Judy Darragh and Chantel Matthews.

Facilitator
Dr. Dina Jezdic is an independent curator, art writer, and decolonial scholar. Her work critically examines the intersections of indigeneity, diaspora, and belonging, with a focus on structural inequities in gender, race, sexuality, and class. Her doctoral research, Decolonial Museum Practice Through Performance Art and Activation: A Collective Autoethnography, explores performance as a radical methodology for disrupting colonial narratives and catalysing institutional transformation.

Panelist
Elisapeta Heta is the Principal and leader of Waka Māia, a Māori design collective within Jasmax, which she co-founded in 2015 to bring a Māori voice to architecture. Elisapeta has contributed significantly to cultural design outcomes of major projects at Jasmax, such as the New Zealand Pavilion at Expo 2020 and City Rail Link. She is an advocate for change, speaking internationally to provide Māori and Pasifika perspectives on the importance of place to design and cultural identity. Elisapeta currently exhibiting her installation The Body of Wainuiātea at Ocean Space at the Venice Biennale.

Panelist
Lisa Beauchamp is Director and Curator of Contemporary Art at Gus Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland/Waipapa Taumata Rau. With responsibility for developing the gallery’s programme of exhibitions, Lisa recently co-curated Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days, a major exhibition focusing on the artist, filmmaker and queer rights activist. She has just opened a new show of feminist video art at Gus Fisher Gallery titled Having it all, all, all including seminal works by Yoko Ono, Ana Mendieta, Pipilotti Rist and more. Guided by intersectional feminist frameworks, Lisa takes a fluid approach to curating with a strong commitment to the idea that galleries can be enjoyable, reflective and self-directed areas of experience.

Panelist
Judy Darragh (b. 1957 Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand) is an artist renowned for her brightly coloured sculptural assemblages, collage, video, and photography. Judy Darragh lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland where she has played a significant role in the development of ARTSPACE Aotearoa, artist-run spaces in Auckland Teststrip and Cuckoo. She was a co-editor of Femisphere a publication supporting women’s art practices in Aotearoa.

Panelist
Chantel Matthews is a conceptual artist, writer and curator of Māori and English descent. Her artworks can be described as sculptural moments inspired by the ‘everyday’ whilst exploring her own subjectivity as a woman, mother, artist and wahine Māori. With a particular interest in how women/wāhine hold space, Chantel’s art /curatorial practice conceptually explores whanaungatanga (working together/relationship through shared experiences) and manaakitanga (supporting others) through kai kōrero, wānanga and collaboration. Over the past year, Chantel has created a digital magazine called HĀ TUA, dedicated to storytelling about people, art, and culture within Aotearoa and abroad. (Ngāti Hounuku, Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Ikaunahi, Tainui) Pakeha