New Zealand

Fiona Pardington presents seventeen striking large-scale portraits of birds. Rich with impossible beauty and aching loss, they continue her exploration of taxidermied native birds from museum collections around Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Highlighting the deep material and cultural significance of birds in the Māori world, she engages directly with them as ancestors and messengers between physical and spiritual realms. A flock reappears from the darkness; renewed, enigmatic and vividly present.

Some of these birds are extinct; others, critically endangered. All underscore the ecological and cultural losses wreaked by humans. Pardington’s attentive approach gives them new life, creating a powerful tribute that acknowledges our shared responsibility.

These towering birds meet us eye to eye, not merely replicated, but reborn. In their frank gaze, we see glimpses of their original habitats, taken from 19th century photographs. This act of care counters the isolation of museum drawers and vitrines, returning them once again to the wild.

What does it mean when an artist tilts our view skywards? Horizons mark the limit of our vision, the curve where knowledge gives way to mystery. Taharaki Skyside holds us at this threshold between the familiar and the unknown.