History
Window is a dual-platform contemporary art and project space which showcases experimental works onsite at The University of Auckland’s General Library foyer and online at windowgallery.co.nz.
Hosting shows that are both internally curated and generated by our collaborators, Window aims to support and showcase a diverse range of ambitious and engaging projects between its two platforms and through other outputs and events.
Window was founded by Stephen Cleland, Michelle Menzies, and Luke Duncalfe; three students from Elam School of Fine Arts. The idea for the space arose from the sense that Elam and its attendant art community was isolated from and inaccessible to larger audiences. The project sought to address this introspectiveness by creating a situation where artists, writers, academics, engineers – anyone with a good idea – could display works and interact with audiences.
This objective has seen a series of subtle revisals since Window’s beginnings, as successive generations of curators have influenced the direction Window has taken. Although the project is permanent, it was anticipated from the outset that it would adapt and evolve, to maintain relevance for audiences as well as those who run it. As such, the project outlives the involvement of its initiators and any given curatorial team.
Window curatorship is a voluntary position. Each group of curators is selected by its predecessors, following a call for applications. After a restructuring of the Centre for Art Studies, Window is now administered by the Library and Learning Services, and is supported by the resources, both human and financial, of The University of Auckland.
Window Gallery is viewable during University of Auckland library hours:
Monday to Thursday 8am-10pm
Friday 8am-8pm
Saturday and Sunday 9am-8pm
Current Curators
Hugo Primbs
2024 - present
Hugo Primbs (b. 1999) is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Currently in a process and painting-driven period of making, his work explores how a reductionist approach to representation enables colour and form to produce feelings of liminality and uncanniness. He graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Master of Visual Arts in 2021 and is a founding member of Hansa Studios (established 2022). In 2022 he exhibited at RM Gallery alongside Samantha Cheng in Surface Level, and produced his first solo exhibition Before Shadows at Window Gallery last year. Hugo is currently part of the curatorial team at Window Gallery.
JingCheng Zhao 赵景程
2024 - present
Jing likes to write, edit videos and crochet. However, Jing is the most interested in producing and being part of bold, provoking, fun, genuine and socially-engaged projects. Jing also thrives on admin thrill, that’s why Jing is so excited to have this opportunity at Window Gallery. Please get in touch and let’s make things happen!
Taarn Scott
2024 - present
Taarn Scott is an artist and arts worker based in Tāmaki Makaurau. They have experience facilitating in, & exhibiting across artist-run spaces. When not hiking between ARI’s and their studio, they’re making ceramics and trying to read more.
Past Curators
Alena Kavka
2023 - 2024
Alena is an art professional based in London. She has experience working across non-profit and artist-run spaces in Tāmaki Makaurau, including Te Tuhi, RM Gallery and Project Space and, online, Contemporary HUM.
Anneka Scholtz
2023 - 2024
Anneka Scholtz is an arts professional currently based in Sydney, Australia, who is passionate about connecting people, art, and ideas. Anneka has worked with a number of New Zealand and Australian contemporary art organizations, artist run spaces and publishing platforms, including Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland's Window Gallery, Te Tuhi, Gus Fisher Gallery, and online platform ArtNow.NZ, as well as Sydney's Verge Gallery.
Briana Duffy-Lane
2021 - 2023
Briana holds a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts and is currently completing her Research Masters this year. Through her painting practice, she examines the links between gender, politics, and religion and the ways in which these can be deconstructed through artistic practices.
Keaton Hamilton
2021 - 2022
Keaton holds a BVA from AUT. She is a ceramic artist who explores ideas surrounding humor, play, and storytelling.
Bonnie Lee
2021 - 2022
Bonnie holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Massey University. Creating conceptual text-based works, Bonnie's ongoing practice is aimed at confronting perceptions of duration and impermanence.
Rozana Lee
2020 - 2021
Rozana Lee holds an MFA with First Class Honours from Elam School of Fine Arts (2018) and a BVA from AUT (2015). Working across textile, painting, moving image, and installation, her practice investigates how cultural dynamism can be felt as togetherness or belonging, without being grounded in homogeneity.
Jasmine Tuiā
2020 - 2021
Jasmine is currently in her Masters Research this year! She works mainly with photography/moving image, sound and Siapo making. Her work focuses on her connections to her family/village narratives’, oral cultures and places.
Ashleigh Taupaki
2019 - 2021
Ashleigh is currently studying a Master of Fine Arts at The University of Auckland. Her sculptural practice explores Māori concepts of place and place-making, informed largely by Māori philosophy and indigenous Pacific narrative.
Vanessa Crofskey
2019 – 2020
Vanessa completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Auckland University of Technology in 2017. She maintains a writing, installation and performance practice and is interested in deconstructing language.
Mya Cole
2019 – 2020
Mya is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, of iTaukei heritage. Her practice is centred on finding ways to interrogate the body and mind in their placement within the fluidity of online and offline connections.
Emmanuel Sarmiento
2019 - 2020
Emmanuel is an artist, musician and graduate of the Elam School of Fine Arts.
Julia Craig
2017 – 2019
Julia is currently studying towards a Master of Arts in Art History at the University of Auckland. She also works for an art therapy charity and does freelance writing and research for art galleries across Auckland.
Becky Hemus
2017 – 2019
Becky completed an Honours degree in Art History at the University of Auckland in 2016. Currently, she is working at Michael Lett as well as facilitating artist projects and maintaining her own art writing practice.
William Linscott
2017 – 2019
William recently graduated from the Masters programme at Elam School of Fine Arts, and maintains a practice after art school.
Anna Sisson
2015 – 2017
Anna is studying towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts. Anna volunteers at Artspace NZ and previously worked at Objectspace.
Dexter Edwards
2015 – 2017
Dexter is a designer and artist. His practice and interests include public space, time-based media, and ecology.
Lucinda Bennett
2015 – 2017
Lucinda is a writer and curator based in Auckland. She is currently working towards her MA in Art History at the University of Auckland. She also has a background in writing for and directing theatre.
Nicola Verdon
2014 – 2015
Nicola recently completed her BA(Hons)/BFA(Hons) in Museums & Cultural Heritage at The University of Auckland and Elam school of Fine Arts respectively. She is also a co-director of the project space ‘PLAZA’ and maintains her own art writing practice.
Victoria Wynne-Jones
2014 – 2015
Victoria completed her Masters in Art History at the University of Auckland in 2012. Currently, she is working towards a doctorate as well as maintaining her own art writing and curatorial practice.
Tim Wagg
2014 – 2015
Tim is currently in his honours year at Elam School of Fine Arts. He is currently the design manager for the charitable trust Savy, and was Vice-President of the Elam Students Association.
Henry Babbage
2012 – 2013
Henry completed his BFA(Hons) at Elam in 2011. Currently, he tutors design to undergraduates at Whitecliffe, co-directs a new gallery space, Gloria Knight, in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, and continues with his art and design practices.
Henry Davidson
2012 – 2013
Henry completed his MA in Visual and Material Culture at Massey University, Wellington. During 2010-2011 he volunteered and interned at Enjoy Public Art Gallery. His writing and research focuses on artefacts and experiences from the everyday and their relationships with contemporary art.
Rebecca Boswell
2011 – 2013
Rebecca completed her BFA(Hons) in 2010. Currently finishing a BA majoring in Sociology; she continues her own art practice and an interest in social and cultural theory.
Alex Davidson
2011 – 2012
Alex completed her Honours year at Elam in 2010, and recently graduated with a BA/BFA (Hons), majoring in Philosophy. Alex is the curatorial assistant at Artspace in Auckland for 2012/13.
Melanie Bell
2010 – 2012
Melanie completed her BFA (Hons) at Elam in 2009, where her final presentation was based in painting and video. In 2011 she worked as an intern at Art News magazine. She now works as a digital project manager.
Sue-Li Tasker Yeo
2009 – 2012
Sue-Li completed a BFA(Hons)/BA in 2009. She currently works as a freelance web designer.
Nell May
2008 – 2010
Nell is a freelance graphic designer, and primarily collaborates with artists and creative institutions. She completed her masters degree at Elam School of Fine Arts in 2011 and currently lives in Germany. As of 2012 Nell co-edits the project platform Elevatorcopy alongside Auckland based artist Taarati Taiaroa.
Mythily Meher
2008 – 2010
Mythily’s writings on art and film have been published in exhibition catalogues and online magazines. She currently pursues postgraduate studies in Anthropology at The University of Auckland.
Anna Parlane
2008 – 2009
Anna was the 2009/2010 Marylyn Mayo Intern at the Auckland Art Gallery, where she is now an assistant curator. Anna completed an Honours degree in Museums and Cultural Heritage in 2009.
Ashleigh Kilmartin
2007 – 2009
Ash graduated with a BFA (Hons)/BA from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2008, and has studied Arts at the University of Auckland and the University of Melbourne. She plans to continue making art, and at the moment is focusing on sculpture and writing as the basis for her practice. Her recent exhibitions include Architecture for the Nation, Artspace, Auckland, Unforseen Employment with Charles Ninow at the George Fraser Gallery, Auckland. She’s also working on projects to be realised in Christchurch and Melbourne.
Sam Rountree-Williams
2007 – 2008
Sam mostly makes art. He also writes about art and curates exhibitions. He is a founding member of Newcall Gallery, and is the editor of a small critical journal, Matters.
Luke Munn
2006 – 2008
Luke graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, producing award-winning interactive work for Schweppes, HP, Nike and The Edge as well as more alternative projects for a punk band, fashion designers and a psychologist. Current projects include sound art collaborations, a pop EP, an architectural website, an interactive search/mapping tool, and a videogame about waiting for a bus.
Sarah Hopkinson
2006 – 2007
After graduating from a BFA/BA in 2006, Sarah co-founded Gambia Castle – a gallery co-operative in Auckland. From 2007-2008 she taught Contemporary Art and Theory in The University of Auckland’s Art History Department and she currently works as gallery manager at both Gambia Castle and Michael Lett. Sarah is also a freelance writer and her work has been published in various art magazines and artist books.
Luke Duncalfe
2002 – 2006
Luke has contributed to art events in Auckland and shown work in the ICECA New Media Festivals in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Rencontres Internationales in Paris and Berlin, and Prix Ars Electronica in Linz. He worked as a part-time tutor at Auckland University of Technology in Visual Arts from 2003-2005 and is currently employed as a developer, programming in Ruby and PHP at The University of Auckland.
Michelle Menzies
2002 – 2006
Michelle was a founding member of Window. She has a BFA in Intermedia & Time Based Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland. Her art practice, based in film and photography, is conceptually preoccupied with light, time and the representation of phenomenological experience. She moved to the U.S. in 2006 and is currently a doctoral student in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, where her dissertation research – focused on twentieth-century aesthetics and media archaeology – considers the category of digital aesthetics.
Stephen Cleland
2002 – 2006
An initial founder of Window, Stephen designed the Onsite structure in 2003 in consultation with Terry Insley from architecture firm Warren and Mahoney. He co-curated the first three and a half years of the exhibition programme at Window and is currently Curator and Manager at Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery (previously St Paul St Gallery), Auckland University of Technology
Sam Ostermann
2002 – 2002
Sam is an artist with a sculptural and photographic practice. Current projects include an experimental record label called Ἔφορος, a photographic monograph entitled A-Z and a Text-Image project called The Antipodies. He is part of the Cross Street Collective.