Toi Pōneke visual artist residency recipient, Johanna Mechen

9 July - 30 September 2018

Toi Pōneke is pleased to announce the recipient of our inaugural Visual Arts Residency, Johanna Mechen.

Working in video and photography, Johanna’s recent work has focused on engagement and participation with a site and its community in order to tell ecological, historical, and cultural stories. Johanna’s project involves exploring a domestic site, motherhood and connection to place. 

Johanna plans to develop work from remnants of play, collected objects, video, and photographs in order to examine the relationship between the concept of a mother as curator of children’s creativity, and a mother who is an artist. She will explore how the two come together and overlap in a push/pull collaboration that invokes a sense of protection and nurturing, alongside joy and loss.

The selection panel were excited by Johanna’s proposal which cohesively placed the meaning of being an artist in residence in a symbiotic relationship to the subject matter of her project.

Johanna holds a Master of Fine Arts at Massey University Wellington (2014). Her work has been shown at Enjoy Gallery, Wellington, Mahara Gallery, Waikanae and The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt.

Johanna will be in residence from early July for 3 months, and presenting an exhibition at Toi Pōneke Gallery in October 2018.