Te T-Shirt show, Hikurangi

The Hikurangi Art Station
Hikurangi, Northland
3 – 31 March
Opening on 3 March, 5 p.m. Music and potluck (bring some food or drink)
Open Tues-Sunday, 10-4 pm

Curated by Virginia Guy + Sonja van Kerkhoff

Nearly everyone has worn a T-shirt and most have outgrown one. T-shirts are often used as a form of branding, advertising or the making of a statement. T-shirt as a sculpture, a painting, a poem or as a second chance? Come view an installation of lines of hanging t-shirts in the newly opened, artist-run space, The Hikurangi Art Station along with a show of prints in the other half of the gallery.

Some artists have responded to the T-shirt as medium such as Elaine Arkell’s “Elephants for Peace” series made for a the Ganesha art exhibition held on the streets on both sides of the border on the island of Cyprus. She made these T-shirts in 2011 to be worn by artists involved in performances on the streets. Another submission “Forget Us Not” are the work shirts of Alison and Ursula in their rural Wales gardening business which specializes in garden care for the often forgotten, the elderly.

Jason Ratahi’s submission is a statement of intent. Tīmatanga Kaitiaki (Protected or mindful beginning, start or introduction) is a T-shirt of slogans, in Māori and New Zealand English. Other artists have taken T-shirts and used them as a medium for re-shaping or re-making.

Jacqueline Wassen’s work uses the T-shirt as subject matter: she has created a paper shirt to be burned as an offering where what remains is a video documentation. More about this show is here