Two artists respond to ideas of reciprocity and human agency in this raw and engaging exhibition, which appropriately marks the week of Solstice.

Lucy Matthews | Common Thread

This project explores local gift economy in Te Waipapa and draws inspiration from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s view of the gift economy. 

Lucy responds to the exchange of resources within our small community. These can be observed within the natural environment and our community. They could include the transformation of oxygen from carbon dioxide, sunshine to ripen fruit, the offer of a lift from the ferry, or a gift of home grown preserves.

For a year Lucy  tracked experiences of giving and receiving within our local landscape, mapping the texture and quality of those moments onto a series of abstract postcards, paintings and embroidered works. These ‘experience-scapes’ offer a snapshot of reciprocity of our local environment and community. 

This work invites us to celebrate our ‘wealth’ beyond traditional economic structures, to appreciate what we are receiving and giving moment to moment and to celebrate the richness of interdependence.

Marie Celeste Lawrence | The Future Was a Feeling

The Future Was a Feeling transforms Stoddart Cottage into the improvised

dwelling of a solitary figure from an imagined future. 

A hybrid character - part cultural archivist, part spiritual custodian. This unknown occupant navigates the ruins of late-stage capitalism through intuitive rituals and practices of preservation, piecing together a personal cosmology from the remnants of subcultures and abandoned ideals.

The exhibition asks what endures when certainty dissolves and without stable systems. Meaning lives through acts of making, reassembling and remembering. Cultural debris becomes both material and message, a residue of past imaginaries that carries the weight of hopes and failures alike. This can be reworked into tools for survival, reflection and resistance, acknowledging how culture shapes both downfall and the possibilities of renewal.

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Both exhibitions open on Saturday July the 4th at 4pm. All welcome.