An exhibition at the Pah Homestead, Wallace Arts Trust, celebrates Auckland’s Māpura Studios, which has provided a creative space for artists, dancers and musicians for two decades.
Madeleine Wilson’s Girl Braiding Hair, 2018 is one of 41 pieces in Pah Homestead’s exhibition Māpura Studios: Give me a minute. Māpura Studios is a creative space that provides dance, music, and art therapy programmes for people living with disability and neurodiversity including people with the experience of Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, visual impairment, intellectual disability and deafness. The title of their exhibition emphasises the strength implicit in growth that takes time. In a statement the studio says, “Give me a minute suggests that ‘good things take time’. As we face the challenges of different climates and seasons we grow, develop, and eventually blossom into the fullness of human experience – making seriously good artwork along the way.”
Collin Harris is an artist inside and outside of the studio. Alongside personal photography and drawing work, he attends the weekly "Studio Practice" at Māpura, a workshop aimed at experienced, long-term artists with an emphasis on research and self directed project exploration. A new painting by Harris, Untitled, 2020 was unveiled on the opening night of the exhibition in the midst of live music, spoken word, and dance performances.
The Wallace Arts Centre has partnered with Māpura Studios since their first show, From here to there, in 2012. Give me a minute is on at Pah Homestead until 29 November.
By Annie Keig