Small World, Big Town: Contemporary Art from Te Papa
Small World, Big Town: Contemporary Art from Te Papa
10 July — 30 October 2005
Presented by 
Proud supporters of City Gallery Wellington
In a partnership project between City Gallery Wellington and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, audiences have the opportunity to view a substantial number of contemporary New Zealand artworks from Te Papa’s visual art collections. The exhibition has been selected by curators from both institutions and staged at City Gallery Wellington. Small World, Big Town: Contemporary Art from Te Papa gives audiences the chance to enjoy an exciting and diverse range of contemporary New Zealand art, from iconic works to recent acquisitions.
In recent decades, New Zealand art has shifted focus from the engagement with nationhood, which characterised much previous work, to the wider world and individual experience. The work in Small World, Big Town focuses both on the local and the immediate, as well as our growing sense of belonging to a global community. Now, as the world appears to shrink in scale, artists get their bearings from all over the place: from far-flung towns to distant locations. Small World, Big Town offers audiences an affectionate look at ourselves as a big town on the periphery of an increasingly smaller world; remote, yet globally connected.
List of works in the exhibition
A partnership exhibition between City Gallery Wellington and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.