On Further Thought is a series of talks which address significant moments — published texts, exhibitions, art works — in local art history from the 1990s and early 2000s. The emphasis is on the act of re-reading, and on reflection itself as a productive form of research that helps us to navigate the present and energises our future art histories. We are particularly interested in research that acknowledges a changing of one’s mind, addresses misconceptions, and attends to the archive as a site of lively reclamation or transformation.

Emerging in response to local writer, arts programmer and curator Emma Ng’s prompt towards the formation of “an art history that can take us somewhere new” (Rattling the Shelves, Satellites Archive, 2024), the intention of this series is to deepen and expand our understanding of local and regional art histories, with a focus on those that may be insufficiently represented art history curricula and dominant exhibition-making practices. A further point of reference is Moana Jackson’s 2020 essay ‘Where to next?’: “[We] developed an intellectual tradition in which the world around us was as ordinary and as extraordinary as tapu....In this intellectual tradition we learned that memory and hope might seem fanciful but they can sometimes lead to new realities.”

July through September, six speakers will present a talk which revisits an art historical moment that they have some personal connection with, and critically reappraises this from where they stand now. These speakers don't all identify as art historians. Rather, the propositions come from a range of practitioners whose work has brought them into contact with the discipline and the wider contemporary arts sector. As a whole the series is intended as a contribution to the future of our multiple art histories in Aotearoa.

Each presentation will be introduced, and followed by a brief critical response from Te Pātaka Toi director Abby Cunnane. In the interests of maintaining an open space for frank and spontaneous kōrero, the talks will not be recorded live but will be published as papers subsequently.

2 July, Wednesday 6pm: Exhibition Afterlives, Emma Ng

This talk reflects on The Asia-Pacific Century, a pair of exhibitions Ioana Gordon-Smith and I curated at Enjoy and Te Uru almost a decade ago. Shaped as much by exhibitions we had never seen as those we had, it reached into the archive and out through our nascent networks, grasping at fragments of cultural memory that preceded our experiences as young curators. Since then, I’ve seen The Asia-Pacific Century take on a similar second-hand life — becoming a reference point for others who didn’t experience it directly. Revisiting the project with the benefit of hindsight, I consider how exhibitions enter the bloodstream of art history through hearsay, photocopies, archived webpages, and speculative memory. Can even misremembering be productive? Drawing on my recent work developing an archive of Aotearoa Asian art with Satellites, I reflect on re-reading as a generative act — one that feeds the formation of art histories that remain alive to the present.
— Emma Ng

Emma Ng is a writer, arts programmer, and curator. She works in the public programming team at Te Papa Tongarewa and is the Editorial Director of Satellites, a platform supporting Asian artists in Aotearoa through publishing, archiving, and international exchange. From early 2014 to late 2016 Ng was the Curator/Manager of Enjoy Contemporary Art Space. Since then, as a freelance curator, she has developed exhibitions for Objectspace, the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, Te Papa, the Dowse Art Museum, and Pātaka. As a writer, her work spans art, design and social history, and has been published in a range of local and international outlets. In 2017 her BWB Text, Old Asian, New Asian, was published by Bridget Williams Books. In 2024, she was also a programmer for the Verb Readers & Writers Festival. Ng studied design and art history at Victoria University of Wellington, and holds an MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

16 July, Wednesday 6pm: Balamohan Shingade

Balamohan Shingade is a current PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Auckland. His doctoral research takes theories of peoplehood as its focus. He runs Spoor Books with Erena Shingade and is an occasional singer of Hindustani music. Previously, Shingade worked as a curator at St Paul St Gallery, AUT, and a researcher with the Center for Culture-Centred Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), Massey University. As a writer, Shingade has contributed to art-agenda at e-flux, Art News New Zealand, Art + Australia Online, Artlink Australia, Christchurch Art Gallery’s Bulletin, University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, Pantograph Punch, and more. As a curator, he has contributed to Field Recordings (2018) and Alex Monteith: Coastal Flows/Coastal Incursions (2017) at ST PAUL St Gallery; Isobel Thom: ILK (2016) and Soft Architecture (2016) at Malcolm Smith Gallery; Joyce Campbell: Te Taniwha and the Thread (2015) at Uxbridge Arts and Culture; and Thirty-six Views of Mount Taranaki (2013) for the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery’s Open Window.

30 July, Wednesday 6pm: Ane Tonga

Ane Tonga is an artist and curator of Tongan descent. Since 2020, Tonga has been the inaugural Curator, Pacific Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her research interests are focused on Pacific art and curatorial practice, lens-based practices and Indigenous feminisms. Tonga’s work is represented in national and international collections such as Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū , and she has worked in curatorial and academic roles across Aotearoa, including at Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland. Her recent curatorial projects include Darcell Apelu: Carry me With you (2023); Declaration: A Pacific Feminist Agenda (2022) at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; Sione Mōnu & Manuha‘apai Vaeatangitau, Kindred: A Leitī Chronicle (2022); Kereama Taepa: Transmission (2020) at Objectspace and Edith Amituanai: Double Take (2019) at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery. Tonga studied fine arts at the Elam School of Fine Arts, and holds a Masters in Art History (First Class Honours) from the University of Auckland.

Future dates:

27 August, Wednesday 6pm
10 September Wednesday 6pm
17 September, Wednesday 6pm