Ani O’Neill: Promise Me/Trust Me

Ani O’Neill, Promise Me / Trust Me, curated by Ane Tonga for The Room, Objectspace. Image: Samuel Hartnett.

6 April - 19 May 2019
Objectspace


“It is in the living room shielded by sofa cushions and huddled behind a ranked army of bric-a-brac that the individual searches for a safe haven from the shock of modern urban life. It is in the phantasmagoria of the interior that objects appear deprived of their immediate usefulness and acquire new meanings and functions, as they are cast in a system of personal associations and elective affinities. What talismans shroud our dwelling places.” The Keeper, Massimiliano Gioni, 2016.

The Room examines how interior space is constructed and expressed through ornamentation and design. This major exhibition developed by Objectspace is the first of its kind which draws together the fields of craft, design and architecture in one large-scale installation. 

Experience four curated environments conceived as rooms, each exploring the social and cultural dimensions of domestic decoration and interior design. Examining by what method interior architecture communicates an oblique language of behaviour and use. 

Within a series of interconnected built structures designed by Knight Associates, curator decorative art and design at Te Papa Justine Olsen in collaboration with contemporary jeweller Karl Fritsch, curator and writer Emma Ng, artist and curator Ane Tonga in collaboration with artist Ani O’Neill, and interior designer Rufus Knight with architect Mijntje Lepoutre, each present an interior scene for The Room.

Existing somewhere between living room, stage set, and design-fair-display, The Room draws on our personal and cultural associations with the objects and architecture of daily life.

Catalogue Essay
Ane Tonga, Ani O’Neill: Promise Me/Trust Me

Press
The Coconet TV, Tales of Taonga: The Kuki Airani Church Hats.

Reviews
Linda Tyler, Leave Traces: A Review of The Room, Pantograph Punch.
Courtney Johnston, “The Room” and Ideas for Notre Dame’s Spire Replacement, Nine to Noon, Radio New Zealand.
Federico Monslave, Review: The Room at Objectspace, Urbis.
Margie Cooney, The Room, The Denizen Magazine.
Dionne Christensen, Objectspace Gallery presents rooms with a view, New Zealand Herald.