The first in a series of events held during the week of the Tertiary exhibition. The artist speakers were Linda Tanoai (AUT, Master year 1) , Juliana Satchell (Unitec, BFA year2) and Sevuloni Tora (UNITEC, BFA year2) in conversation with Nina Tonga, art history lecturer at the University Of Auckland.

Strengthening Sennit is an exhibition of work by fifteen artists who are currently attending four Auckland City tertiary institutions.Tautai Trust had two aims when instigating this exhibition, one, as a means of bringing together students from across the city and the other, to provide an opportunity to a recent graduate to curate an exhibition.

The artists are both undergraduate and post graduate students and the hope is that in the process of working towards the exhibition they will form peer/collegial relationships which will stay with them when they leave their educational institutions and journey out into the world.

The title Strengthening Sennit acknowledges the beauty of this most durable fibre and highlights how it becomes stronger when individual fibres are woven together.

The artists while linked through shared pacific histories live in today’s world and are contemporary artists; examining, questioning and commenting on a range of issues and subjects that are of interest to them now. Their individual voices are strengthened through the shared endeavour of this exhibition.

Leanne Clayton

Curator