Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
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Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Dr. Fiona Pardington’s Taharaki Skyside is the art exhibition at the Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà representing Aotearoa New Zealand at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Taharaki Skyside features 17 massive photographs of taxidermied birds borrowed from New Zealand museum collections, and explores Indigenous knowledge and a reminder of how humans are changing nature, acting as a bridge between the living world, ecological loss, and what comes after.
The manu guide us. When we gaze into their eyes, we will see the horizons they gaze out upon and are situated within.
– Fiona Pardington
In Māori culture, these manu are not just old objects; they are seen as sacred taonga that connect our world to the spiritual world.
By using dramatic lighting and zooming in close, Pardington makes these birds – some critically endangered, others completely extinct like the huia – look like powerful, ancient gods. Instead of leaving them trapped in cold museum display cases, she brings back their wildness and dignity.
Fiona Pardington, North Island kōkako, Callaeas wilsoni, albino, Remutaka Range, 30 June 1883; collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (OR. 000167)
Layered with references to Dante's Divine Comedy and featuring vintage landscapes superimposed into the birds' eyes in Taharaki Skyside.
Fiona Pardington, detail of North Island kōkako, Callaeas wilsoni, albino, Remutaka Range, 30 June 1883; collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (OR. 000167)
Pardington cleverly draws a line between the sunrises and sunsets of her home in the Hunter Hills of Te Waipounamu (the South Island) and the light of the Venetian archipelago. Her brother and the project's creative director, Neil Pardington, incorporated these precise horizon gradients directly into the custom frames of the photographs.
Fiona Pardington, Taharaki Skyside, Installation (detail). Photography By Neil Pardington.
The New Zealand Arts Council Toi Aotearoa and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū are proud to be working with Fiona Pardington to present Taharaki Skyside at the Aotearoa New Zealand national pavilion for the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
This link takes you to the NZ At Venice website.
This essay, Soul Frequencies by Te Papa Curator Art Megan Tamati-Quennell, was originally published in Fiona Pardington: Taharaki Skyside.
Watch videos about New Zealand’s presence at the giant visual arts exhibition, the Venice Biennale, as supported by Creative New Zealand.
This link will take you to the NZ At Venice YouTube channel.
