Tyrone Ohia was raised in Whanganui and attended kura at Pūtiki.
The Sarjeant Gallery has reached another milestone in the redevelopment project, unveiling brand new design concepts and an extraordinary tohu (logo) to signify the beginning of the next chapter in the gallery’s story.
These visual elements bring the gallery into the next phase - communicating what a new way forward will look like, especially when it comes to what the gallery represents and does within the community as a meeting place where ideas are ignited and as a space that feeds education, discussion, and storytelling.
Tyrone Ohia and his kaupapa Māori design studio, Extended Whānau, bring a unique lens and conceptual thinking to the table. Ohia has been able to reflect the gallery’s interwoven histories and multi-faceted identity with a timeless design that can carry the gallery forward into its new digs and beyond.
As part of the Unesco Creative Cities global network, Whanganui proudly holds the arts at the heart of its community.
People pour into town to engage with the creative talent buzzing in the streets. Ohia has a strong connection to Whanganui being raised here and attending kura at Pūtiki. He is part of a network of creatives, educated at the design school here in this international city of design, who have gone on to shape the aesthetic flavour of Aotearoa.
“Most of my memories of the Sarjeant are from when I was a student at design school,” Ohia said.
“We’d always go to the openings and it was a place where you’d bump into everyone and see all of the Whanganui creative community in one place, not just the creative community though, it was a real meeting place.”
Ohia speaks of the two strands of whakapapa he has focused on to inform the design process, one being the unifying of the gallery’s names, and a more meaningful embrace of the Māori name.
Te Whare o Rehua was the name given to the Sarjeant Gallery in 1995 as part of Māori language year. The aspiration for this theme year was to connect both tangata whenua and tangata tiriti to the Māori language. Bill Millbank was at the helm at that time, and he recognised the importance of public institutions embracing the nation’s indigenous language and supporting it to flourish. Millbank built strong relationships between iwi and the gallery which resulted in the gifting of this name, presented by George Waretini, who was on the Sarjeant Gallery Trust Board at the time. Te Whare o Rehua, has been translated as “the house of inspiration”.
Ohia speaks on the story and substance that comes from this.
“The amount of imagination that’s in that name, for an art gallery, and everything that an art gallery does, it makes it something that everyone can appreciate.
“It doesn’t really feel to us like we’ve made anything new per se, even though it’s a new tohu and embracing the Māori name, it was more about surfacing that richness that’s already there.”
You can see how this thinking has translated into the design with the gifted name positioned starward atop the original name, Sarjeant Gallery, which visually grounds the gallery in its history – founded through the gift of Henry Sarjeant to establish the gallery “as a means of inspiration for ourselves and those who come after us.”
The synergy of both of these intentions, as something to inspire the next generation, is represented powerfully together so as to be grounded by the past yet looking to the stars to guide the pathway forward.
The second strand of whakapapa that Ohia has woven into the design story for the gallery is in the history of the building itself.
It houses a collection of art spanning 400 years, with over a century of visitors coming and going from all over the world. The conversations these works will continue to feed in the iconic building, and its thoughtfully designed new wing. The architects engaged in a series of co-design workshops with Te Kāhui Toi, the artist group appointed by Te Rūnanga o Tūpoho.
An example of the thinking that came out of these workshops is how the building is now connected to the story of the natural environment around it. The shiny steel Tioata inserts, simulating the kanapanapa, the light shimmering on the flowing water, highlight an ancient pūrakau specific to the awa. These kinds of details are gearing the gallery up for the next century.
“We read the visual world the same way we read words and try to figure out what the story might be,” he said.
“The sparkly Rehua star tohu that we’ve created has come from the architectural thinking in the old and new buildings.
“What we’ve done is to try to have a conversation with that. It’s almost like two circles that have been combined to become one. It’s a bit like the floor plan of the buildings itself - an old building and a new building, two cultures, clipping together into this one creative star.”
As a design studio, Extended Whānau has a lot of experience working with galleries.
Their work for Auckland Art Gallery’s largest, most visited exhibition, Toi Tū Toi Ora, has been celebrated as a “legacy piece of design for Aotearoa”.
The subsequent book design won the supreme award for best book in Aotearoa at the latest PANZ book design awards. Their work was also an integral part of communicating the significance of Matariki for the national public holiday campaign.
Gallery director, Andrew Clifford, sees these examples of how a kaupapa Māori approach to design brings something essential to the way the public are able to connect with these major national events.
“A really impressive thing that Tyrone has done is build on these well-established narratives that are very much already embedded in who the Sarjeant Gallery is,” Clifford said.
“He’s taken what we’ve already got and put this beautiful new presentation to it that adds more layers that will help us communicate what this identity is. This is the next level of thinking about who we are as a bilingual, bicultural institution.”
Via these new design elements, Clifford has already begun imagining ways in which the story behind Rehua and the house of inspiration can lead to thinking and working in different ways.
“Rehua is a star that rises at a particular time and we should celebrate it in the calendar so maybe we have a special event in January-February. So already there are frameworks there, in terms of the calendar, that open up to us through this work.”
Ohia has a clear mission for the work they do at Extended Whānau: “We use design to make Māori culture more seen and understood, to get Māori narratives out there to everyone, so everyone can see the beauty within the culture and have a connection to it.”
This new tohu will now guide the gallery as its identity unfolds into the future, upholding the history of innovation and guardianship of some of the nation’s most compelling and innovative artists. It brings with it the courage and curiosity of those who came before and that which can be seen in the next generation. It shimmers with potential, like the waters on the awa, signalling: nau mai, haere mai. This is a place where everyone can find their creative spark.
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