Turner Prize-winning UK artist at Artspace Aotearoa

Lubaina Himid. Photo by Magda Stawarska, Hollybush Gardens

British Council New Zealand and the Pacific is proud to support Prompts, a significant exhibition bringing together Turner Prize-winning UK artist Lubaina Himid and leading New Zealand practitioner Michael Parekōwhai at Artspace Aotearoa.

Lubaina Himid’s historic win of the Turner Prize made her the oldest artist and the first artist of colour to receive the award. Prompts features Himid’s works on paper alongside Parekowhai’s early and significant sculptural work, The Indefinite Article (1990), presented at Artspace Aotearoa 35 years after its debut in the seminal exhibition Choice! curated by pioneering Māori curator George Hubbard.

The exhibition, which runs from 1 February – 17 April 2025, responds to Artspace Aotearoa's annual programming question, "is language large enough?" Through bringing these two senior practitioners in contact for the first time, Prompts addresses language's role in shaping identity and agency.

This exhibition represents an important cultural exchange between the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand, and is presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival and Te Papa Tongarewa. The exhibition will travel to Te Papa Tongarewa later in 2025.

It was announced in February 2025 that Lubaina Himid was selected to represent the UK at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2026.

The British Council New Zealand and the Pacific is proud to support the Prompts exhibition public program:

Deep dive: Lecture by Hanahiva Rose
Worlds to be chosen, disturbed, interpreted and navigated
Wednesday 26 February 2025, 6:00pm

Join Te Papa Curator Hanahiva Rose who will reflects on the seminal exhibition Choice! (1990) held at Artspace Aotearoa, curated by George Hubbard. Rose will consider this exhibition in a broader exploration of Māori exhibition making today.

First Thursdays Open Late
Thursday 6 March & Thursday 3 April 2025

Artspace Aotearoa will be open late for First Thursdays with our current exhibition, Prompts. See artwork by senior artists, Michael Parekōwhai and Turner Prize-winning UK-based artist Lubaina Himid. Our team will be on site to talk to visitors about the exhibition. This event is part of First Thursdays on Karangahape Road, which sees galleries including Artspace Aotearoa, open late alongside shops, street stalls, performances and live music.

Portrait workshop with Māpura Studios
Saturday 15 March 2025, 10:00am

This workshop is inspired by the work of Lubaina Himid included in the exhibition Prompts at Artspace Aotearoa. Join Māpura Studios tutors in hands-on workshop where participants will be guided to use a variety of processes including drawing, collage, painting and printmaking to create a version of portraiture. Through artmaking and kōrero participants will explore the idea of depicting self in relation to the world around them.
Suitable for ages 12+, participants under 16 must be accompanied by parent or guardian. Booking is essential as space is limited.

Inside Ngā Taonga Tūturu
Sunday 16 March 2025, 11:00am
Auckland Art Gallery toi o Tāmaki

This talk will explore the diverse approaches to portraiture currently on show in Prompts at Artspace Aotearoa and Ngā Taonga Tūturu: Treasured Māori Portraits at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Join Kaitohu Director of Artspace Aotearoa Ruth Buchanan and Kaitiaki Matua, Toi Māori | Senior Curator, Māori Art, at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki , Nathan Pōhio as they consider the works on display at Artspace Aotearoa and Toi o Tāmaki, respectively. Artspace Aotearoa offers insights into UK-based Lubaina Himid and sculptural work from Michael Parekōwhai alongside taonga whakairo and the portraits by Gottfried Lindauer from the collections of Toi o Tāmaki. This exchange will explore how portraiture continues to evolve as a complex expression of subjecthood in Te Ao Māori and in contemporary art. This event will take place at the Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium, booking is available on their website.

In focus: Shaping our art histories
Friday 28 March 2025, 10:00am

Join Kaitohu Director Ruth Buchanan and art historian Matariki Williams for a one day workshop for emerging artists, curators, and art historians to consider the way exhibitions impact on the making of art history. Participants will explore how art history and exhibition standards impacted the work of both Lubaina Himid and Michael Parekōwhai, in which ways have they expanded on standard approaches to displaying their work? How does the current exhibition connect to exhibition making in Aotearoa today and in the future?

Audio described tour
Saturday 5 April 2025, 2:00pm

Join Nicola Owen from Audio Described Aotearoa and Kaitohu Director Ruth Buchanan for a tour tailored for blind and low vision audiences and gain insight into the works on display from Lubaina Himid and Michael Parekōwhai in the exhibition Prompts.

For more information please visit the Artspace Aotearoa website.

About Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid CBE RA was born in Zanzibar in 1954 and lives and works in Preston UK. For more than four decades, Himid has created paintings, drawings and installations that uncover marginalised and silenced histories, figures and cultural moments. She first studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Art and went on to receive an MA in Cultural History from the Royal College of Art. One of the pioneers of the British Black Arts Movement, Himid is deeply engaged with the problem of the lack of representation of Black and Asian women in the art world, and she has been committed to showing the work of underrepresented contemporaries since the 1980s. She is the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize, the 2023 Maria Lassnig Award, and the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth | Flag Art Foundation Prize. Himid has exhibited extensively, recent significant solo exhibitions include UCCA, Beijing (forthcoming); The Contemporary Austin, Texas; Greene Naftali, New York; The Flag Art Foundation, New York, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, and Tate Modern, London.

About Michael Parekōwhai

Michael Parekōwhai is an artist of Ngāriki Rotoawe, Ngāti Whakarongo, and an Emeritus Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. For more than 30 years, he has continued his whānau passion for and commitment to education. Working across the disciplines of sculpture, installation, and photography, Parekōwhai’s career spans more than three decades and multiple continents. Parekōwhai’s work plays with scale, space, and time, skewering the intersections between national and personal narratives, colonial histories and popular culture. Parekōwhai was awarded the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate award in 2001 and appointed a Te Apārangi Fellow by the Royal Society in 2017. In 2011 he was the sole presenter for New Zealand at the 54th Venice Biennale and was awarded the Premier of Queensland’s Sculpture Commission. He has presented work at Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Te Papa Tongarewa, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery, and most recently the 16th Sharjah Biennale.

About Artspace Aotearoa

Artspace Aotearoa is a public contemporary art gallery located in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Founded in 1987 by artists and arts workers, it continues to be artist-led. Their work centres the ways in which art contributes to our understanding and reimagining of the world in which we live. They work within a specific city context, and spiral out into national and international conversations that promote practices that present emancipatory world views. With a specific focus on developing an intergenerational kaupapa, they seek to present established, emerging and under-recognised positions. Each year their programme orbits around one question in the company of artists. They explore the edges of what this question offers and what artworks and their authors can weave together. Artspace Aotearoa’s cornerstone exhibitions are texturised by their other activities including our online reading and screening rooms, artist talks, workshops, panel discussions etc.