Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
Gate 3, Kelburn Parade
Wellington 6140
New Zealand

Walking tour with Ana Iti and Christina Barton

Walking Tour

2.00pm 22 May 2021

A feature of artist Kate Newby’s practice is the way it is rooted in her observations of the world around her. Signs of this are manifold in YES TOMORROW, her solo exhibition at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi. They include the found glass scavenged from the streets of Wellington that has made its way into the show, and the clay-tile drains that are the inspiration for her installation above the Terrace Tunnel.

Adam Art Gallery director Christina Barton and artist Ana Iti, take a walk sparked by Newby’s exhibition. Adopting the Situationist’s concept of the ‘dérive’, they will traverse the city, starting with Newby’s outdoor works and ending not far from the Carillon on Buckle Street, offering a random tour that encourages participants to see the city through a different lens.

Christina Barton has worked with both Kate Newby and Ana Iti, inviting them to produce new work for the Adam Art Gallery. She has a longstanding interest in contemporary sculpture and the recent history of artists who work with materials, bodies, sites and language to expand, de- and re-materialise the medium in self-consciously anti-monumental and environmentally sensitive ways.

Ana Iti (Te Rawara) is an artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington who has produced a body of work that draws on embedded histories and grants them material form in moving images, text-based works and sculptural installation. She is currently one of four artists in residence at the Art Centre in Ōtautahi Christchurch and last year she undertook the McCahon House Residency in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her most recent work, Takoto, 2020, can be seen on the roof of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. This was commissioned as part of the Toi Tū Toi Ora exhibition.

Detail of brick wall, arrows directing up and down carved into bricks.

Detail of ‘prison’ bricks, Tasman Street Brick Wall, Wellington, 2021 (photo: Christina Barton)