20 August — 15 November 2026

Sefton Rani:
Clear My Throat

Presented by 2026 Guest Curator Dina Jezdić

Opening Celebration • Thursday 20 August • 6 - 7:30PM
In Conversation: Dina Jezdić & Sefton Rani • Saturday 22 August • 3 - 4PM

Clear My Throat evokes the moment before a speech: the clearing of space, breath, and intention. This gesture, calls forth ancestral presence, allowing them to speak through us.

Sefton Rani, Nigredo, 2026 (detail). Image courtesy of the artist.

Through burning, stripping, layering, and fusing paint, wood, and found materials, Sefton Rani develops what he calls industrial tapa—surfaces where pressure, memory, and place remain materially inscribed. Creation becomes invocation.

Engaging scent, sound, and scale, the exhibition reimagines colonial domestic architecture as a living body, bringing Rani’s new works into dialogue with selected works from The Arts House Trust Collection to trace shifting relations between materiality, geography, and time.

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Guest Curator Programme

The Arts House Trust offers an annual Guest Curator opportunity designed to support curatorial practice and encourage fresh perspectives within Aotearoa New Zealand’s contemporary arts sector. Initiated in 2025, the programme invites curators to develop an exhibition that brings works from The Arts House Trust Collection into conversation with contemporary artistic practice, fostering new dialogue and supporting the critical role curators play in shaping artistic discourse, interpretation, and audience engagement within the wider arts sector.

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Events & Public Programme

• Opening Celebration
  Thursday 20 August • 6 - 7:30PM

• In Conversation: Dina Jezdić & Sefton Rani
  Saturday 22 August • 3 - 4PM

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