This lecture is presented as part of AGENCY: A curatorial intensive in three questions—How do I learn? How do I act? How do I imagine? presented by Artspace Aotearoa and Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery. Read more about the full symposium programme.

How do I imagine: Ihi—The poetics of possibility

Megan Tamati-Quennell responds to the provocation How do I imagine? through a reflection on the conception and realisation of Ihi, her curatorial project for Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, held in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates in 2025.

Drawing on Māori philosopher Māori Marsden’s definition of ihi as ‘a psychic rather than a spiritual force,’ the presentation explores how transcendent or autonomous power can operate within curatorial practice as a catalyst for cross-cultural solidarity.

As well as discussing the concepts evolved for Ihi, Tamati-Quennell will consider how her curatorial methodology of foregrounding Indigeneity and First Nations art, not as peripheral inclusions but as central and generative forces, offered alternate modalities and frames to the globe spanning exhibition of the Sharjah Biennial.

Her presentation contemplates the wider curatorial structure of Sharjah Biennial 16, to carry, developed collectively by the five curators - Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Natasha Ginwala, Zeynep Öz and Tamati-Quennell - through five interrelated exhibitions: Rosestrata: Trajectory/Translation, Throwing Shells, The Ancestral Well: Pulse to Terrain, Yaz and Ihi.

Polyphonic, pluri-centric and porous in its structure, Sharjah Biennial 16, to carry enabled each curator - all women of colour - to speak from distinct positionalities while remaining connected within a shared curatorial ecology. Central to the broader curatorial context were questions conceived collectively, which underpinned the biennial offering;

What does it entail ‘to carry’ your home, ancestors and political formations with you? What do we carry when it is time to travel, flee or move on? What are the passages that we form as we migrate between territories and across time? What do we carry when we remain? What do we carry when we survive?

Within Ihi, these propositions resonated through ideas of carrying land, history, grief, ruptured and unsettled pasts, embodied and reclaimed knowledges, speculative futures and more, intrinsic within First Nations cultures, but which also extended meaningfully across the wider constellation of works within Tamati-Quennell’s Ihi exhibition

Workshop participants already have a reserved place at this lecture and are not required to RSVP.

AGENCY: A curatorial intensive in three questions—How do I learn? How do I act? How do I imagine? is presented by Artspace Aotearoa and Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery and supported by Chartwell Trust, Goethe Institut, National Services Te Paerangi, and Toi o Aotearoa Creative New Zealand Te Manu Ka Tau International Delegates Programme.

Megan Tamati-Quennell is a leading curator and writer. She has a 36-year curatorial career specialising in modern and contemporary Māori and Indigenous art. Tamati-Quennell is the longest serving curator in this field receiving a CNZM in 2024, for her contribution to Māori and First nations art. She is of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngai Tahu, Kāti Māmoe and Waitaha descent. Tamati-Quennell has held curatorial positions at the National Art Gallery, Te Papa Tongarewa and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and has worked as an independent curator at the Sharjah Art Foundation and in Busan, South Korea. She currently holds the position of Curator, Modern and Contemporary Māori and Indigenous Art at Te Papa. Recent career highlights include co-curating Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry (2025) and Emily Karaka: Ka Awatea, A New Dawn, the first major survey exhibition of senior Māori painter Emily Karaka, (2024). Tamati-Quennell is a PhD candidate in Fine Arts, in an Indigenous-led programme at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.