Media Release: 26 July 2018

Exhibition to open Suffrage 125 commemorations in Tauranga

The first of Tauranga’s Suffrage 125 events is set to open at 5.30pm on Friday 10th of August 2018 with an exhibition in the Peoples Gallery at the Historic Village. On 19 September 1893 the Electoral Act 1893 was passed, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote. As a result of this landmark legislation, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Jo Torr’s exhibition Vahine-Wahine brings together two of her well-known series of work to celebrate New Zealand women who won the right to vote 125 years ago. Torr reflects on the position of women through history with her unique conceptual sculpture. Each sculpture takes the form of a garment that incorporates an aspect of Polynesian/Māori or European cloth and an aesthetic sensibility associated with either culture. This event is hosted by The Incubator.

Torr’s Transit of Venus works are beautiful and elaborate gowns that explore the exchanges between European and Polynesian peoples at the time of James Cook’s voyages in the South Pacific. The gowns are based on European dress styles of the 1770s when Cook’s voyages took place, and point to the similarity in silhouette with Tahitian tapa gift-giving ceremonies.

Kaitaka presents a spectacular couple in 1880s dress constructed from cream coloured woollen blankets that stand in for muka, the dressed flax fibre of traditional Maori cloaks. These works examine the historical interrelation of Maori cloaks and European woollen blankets drawing attention to the way Maori adopted and adapted new materials into everyday life.

Jo Torr is an award-winning artist whose art is exhibited and collected by public museums, art galleries and private collections. Through her sculpture, she explores the mutual cultural exchange between Polynesian and European peoples. She has tertiary qualifications in fine art, graphic design, Māori visual arts, fashion design, museum studies and librarianship. She currently works as the Registrar at the Tauranga Art Gallery.

Further events in the Suffrage 125 calendar include: a school debate ‘Why Men Should Have The Vote?’; An Evening with Helen Clark at Holy Trinity Church; Kororareka: The Ballad of Maggie Flynn at Baycourt; A Suffrage March at Katikati, A Celebration of Patchwork and Quilting by Papamoa Patchers; a luncheon panel hosted by the Business Women’s Network; An Evening with Jan Tinetti in Tauranga City Council chambers; a Suffrage themed school holiday programme for children by Tauranga City Libraries; ‘A Talk on Three Female Voters from Te Puke’ by Marie Lewis hosted by Tauranga Historical Society; publication ‘Western Bay Women’, and the launch of children’s book ‘Eliza and the White Camellia: A Story of Suffrage in New Zealand’ by Debbie McCauley. There are several more events to be confirmed so keep an eye on the Suffrage 125 Tauranga Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/womenssuffrage

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