Futuna Exhibition - Public Talks

Futuna Chapel - early design drawing (1958) John Scott - architect

A series of public talks will be held in the Chapel each Sunday afternoon of the Exhibition. The presenters will talk about the lives and work of the Chapel’s architect and artist, the wairua of the heritage of Aotearoa and how Futuna Chapel was ensured of guardianship and protected.

Programme:

Sun 3 Nov, 2pm–4pm:

The psychedelic intent of the Futuna Chapel Presented by Dr James Charlton

Finding the pre-history of post-object art in Futuna Chapel Presented by Tina Barton MNZM Futuna Exhibition co-curator

Sun 10 Nov, 2pm–4pm:

Kaitiakitanga: Living with the legacy of a Heritage New Zealand property Presented by Frances Martin and André Pritchard

Understanding John Scott and his architecture Presented by Chris Molle

Sun 17 Nov, 2pm–4pm:

What it took to legally protect Futuna 20 years ago and would it happen today Presented by Barbara Fill

Exploring aspects of heritage with a Māori history nerd Presented by Puawai Cairns

Presenters:

James Charlton – Dr James Charlton is a New Zealand based artist.

His work covers a range of practices including object-based sculpture, stereo-lithography, installation, robotics, interactive screen-based and performance work. Indebted to the generation of Post-object artists before him, his process driven work centres on the phenomenological event of art while tending to shun issue driven thematic.

Tina Barton MNZM – Futuna Exhibition co-curator

Christina Barton is an art historian, curator, writer and educator based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She has a keen interest in the history of New Zealand art after 1960 and especially the critical and conceptual practices that emerged in the 1970s which continue to inform much contemporary art in the present. She has written extensively about many of the key first-generation figures in this trajectory, including Jim Allen, Billy Apple, Bruce Barber, Phil Dadson, Pauline Rhodes, and Vivian Lynn. As director of Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery at Victoria University of Wellington (2007–2023) she is well used to seeing how artists can be inspired by the buildings in which they are invited to work.

Frances Martin and André Pritchard are kaitiaki of the Martin House, a John Scott designed category 1 Historic Place in Bridge Pa, near Hastings.

The site comprises a home, pottery, anagama kilns and ten acres of park like garden. They live there with their children, Elliott (9) and Iolanthe (5), managing and maintaining the property. Frances is the granddaughter of the original owners, Bruce and Estelle Martin. She is an art gallery educator at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga. Frances posts pottery pictures on Instagram, pulls weeds and frets about leaks in John Scott’s extravagant roofing system. Recently she helped restore and fire the small anagama kiln onsite with the help of a community of potters. André is a high school English teacher. He was highly commended in the recent Warren Trust Awards for Architectural Writing, where he wrote about the pottery and workshop. His piece, ‘Kōrero Kamaka’, will be published along with the other winners later this year. André rakes leaves, thrashes the ride on mower and dreams of the day when he can sit down on a chair out the front, knowing all the jobs have been done.

Chris Moller – award winning architect, inventor and TV presenter

Studied in New Zealand at Wellington Polytechnic Industrial Design School under Mark Pennington, James Coe and Jerry Luhman and later at Auckland School of Architecture before travelling to Europe where he entered competitions including the Cultural Centre in Samarkand, Uzbekistan and Europan 3 urban housing in Groningen (completed 2003) and established S333 Architecture+Urbanism (Amsterdam). Simultaneously he worked as Senior Urbanist for the City of Groningen, and design tutor of Housing and Urbanism unit at the Architecture Association (London).

Barbara Fill - heritage planner, researcher, heritage policy adviser, guest lecturer and heritage advocate.

Barbara has a B.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Auckland and a M.Phil. in Environmental and Resource Planning from Massey University. She has also attended a course in the Conservation of Architectural Heritage/Historic Structures, at ICCROM in Rome. She has researched over 1,000 heritage buildings, sites and reserves in New Zealand for: registration under the former Historic Places Act 1993; conservation plans; local authority data bases and heritage inventories; planning documents; reserve management plans; and heritage orders.

Puawai Cairns is of Māori descent from Tauranga Moana and belongs to the Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui iwi.

She has worked in the museum and culture sector for twenty years and presently works as the Director of Audience and Insight at Te Papa Tongarewa where she oversees the audience facing work of the national museum. Puawai has a curatorial and research background, and previously was the Head of Mātauranga Māori for Te Papa where she specialised in contemporary social history research and collecting to reflect the stories of Māori communities. Puawai co-wrote a book on the material culture of protest (Gibson, S., Williams, M., & Cairns, P. (2019). Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of resistance, persistence and defiance), which won the 2019 Ockham book award for Best Illustrated Non-fiction and completed co-writing a book about the blockbuster Gallipoli exhibition at Te Papa (Cairns, P., Pugsley, C., Keith, M., & Taylor, R. (2022). Gallipoli: The Scale of our War (1st ed.). Te Papa Press.).