When you’re step­ping into Te Papa’s new gallery space Toi Art, be pre­pared for some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from your stan­dard gallery expe­ri­ence. Toi Art is a gallery space 20 years in the mak­ing, it takes over two floors of Te Papa and the new entrance gallery is larg­er than any space at Te Papa. I spent over an hour just explor­ing the first floor so this is my first floor sto­ry.

20 years ago, Parade, one of Te Papa’s open­ing exhi­bi­tions fea­tured Col­in McCahon’s ‘North­land Pan­els’ squished between an old tele­vi­sion set play­ing ads and a refrig­er­a­tor, so I hoped for some next lev­el thought­ful but dif­fer­ent. Michael Parekowhai’s lat­est project Détour deliv­ers. He’s mined the muse­um’s art, his­to­ry, Taon­ga Māori and archive col­lec­tions, mixed old, bor­rowed and new works amongst a for­est of plas­tic trees. I was tak­en by ‘The B‑E-T-T‑Y waist­coat’ by Mar­cel Duchamp and its com­pan­ion work ‘Le très joli gilet aka cor­pus’ — a waist­coat Michael Parekowhai com­mis­sioned design­er Kate Sylvester to cre­ate. Duchamp’s waist­coat was designed for his friend Julius Isaacs with the but­tons spelling the name of Isaacs’s wife. Sylvester’s waist­coat has the name M‑I-K-E‑P, spelled out by but­tons. It’s art you know but not as you know it, but it’s how I love it.

Lisa walker’s jew­ellery ret­ro­spec­tive Lisa Walk­er: I want to go to my bed­room but I can’t be both­ered, made me smile, she has a real skill in mix­ing medi­ums and is also an amaz­ing advo­cate for jew­ellery to be viewed as art. I real­ly enjoyed two pieces that both chal­lenged the idea of jew­ellery . ‘Neck­lace from 2016’ is con­struct­ed using five fluffy duck­lings and a recent­ly com­mis­sioned over­sized piece uses old Te Papa floor tiles. What wall is not improved with a bit of jew­ellery? Head up stairs in Toi Art and you’ll see the inspi­ra­tion for Te Papa floor in Miky­la Dwyer’s ‘Wall Neck­lace’.

Fin­ish­ing off floor one is a cel­e­bra­tion of fash­ion, per­for­mance, film and art that is the pow­er­ful Pacif­ic Sis­ters: Fash­ion Activists. Greet­ing you and maybe(?) act­ing as a kaiti­a­ki of the exhi­bi­tion is a piece com­mis­sioned for Te Papa’s open­ing 20 years ago — yet again the cura­tors have done this won­der­ful thing of tying the past to the present & it’s the sto­ries like this with­in Toi Art’s open­ing I’ve tru­ly appre­ci­at­ed. The kaiti­a­ki is made from found and recy­cled mate­ri­als, with a heavy empha­sis of video tape (unlike a craft project or Project Run­way it all feels pur­pose­ful) and she sets the sto­ry for what you’ll find inside, a col­lec­tion of videos, pho­tog­ra­phy and gar­ments cre­at­ed by the Pacif­ic Sis­ters art col­lec­tive. I want­ed to reach out and touch every­thing and lucky for me one sec­tion has sam­ples of mate­ri­als used so you get the whole look and feel. Accom­pa­ny­ing the exhi­bi­tion is a Spo­ti­fy playlist so you can get a feel for the fash­ion parade/dance par­ty that is a Pacif­ic Sis­ters event. Like every­thing in Toi Art  where pos­si­ble every­thing is list­ed in Māori first, then Eng­lish. It’s very small unno­tice­able but impor­tant touch­es like this that make me appre­ci­ate Te Papa’s new space.

Détour by Michael Parekowhai is runs till 4 Nov 2018

Pacif­ic Sis­ters: Fash­ion Activists runs till 8 July 2018

Lisa Walk­er: I want to go to my bed­room but I can’t be both­ered runs till 22 July 2018

Toi Art is 2 floors of Te Papa and may it run forever