Changing Threads

Just three days left to see Changing Threads at Refinery ArtSpaces at 114 Hardy St!

This is our last exhibition before we move to our new home at 79 Trafalgar St, where we're getting a new name - Tāwera.

So many changes! But also lots of things staying the same - especially our commitment to presenting a fabulous exhibition programme, starting with Ordinary Wonders, presented by RISE: Respect Inspire Support Empower (15 Aug-16 Sept).

We hope you're all stick with us on this new adventure!

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Only five days left at Refinery ArtSpaces at 114 Hardy St!

Our last day at 114 Hardy St is on Saturday 18 July, when we close the doors forever on this gallery space.

So best get there asap to see Changing Threads - our most popular exhibition of the year.

Refinery ArtSpace is getting a new home and a new name - Tāwera. After a little break while we move from here to there (at the new arts hub at Miller's Acre), we will be reopen with our next exhibition, Ordinary Wonders, presented by RISE: Respect Inspire Support Empower (15 Aug-16 Sept).

We hope you're all stick with us on this new adventure!

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And just to wrap up the award winners for CT26, here's Michelle Mayn's Kākano | Seed, which won the Hiwa | Award of Excellence ($1000 cash prize).

For its sheer scale alone - it's more than 2 metres long - this work looks spectacular from afar, and then is equally stunning up close.

Michelle (from Tāmaki Makaurau) talks about the processes of gathering, drying, sorting, and prepping of the seeds, and then how it all comes together: "The twined stitch and knotted edge grounds methods of making within the context of human-kinds most ancient textile past - an acknowledgment of a universally shared textile history."

Changing Threads is one for another week, until Sat 18 July.

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If you've been to a Changing Threads exhibition, then you're probably familiar with the CT catalogue - they've become a collector's item! So much so, that we've now sold out of the 2026 edition.

But wait, we've popped it online so you can still delve into the info on all the artworks. The link is on this page www.acn.org.nz/changing-threads

On that note, if you have a spare CT catalogue from the early days (2009-2019) - please consider donating it to our archives.

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One of the really notable things about Changing Threads 2026 is the increase of submissions from young artists.

It was a tough decision, but the Hiwa | Emerging Artist Award ($1000 cash prize) sponsored by Dame Suzie Moncrieff and Fresh Choice Nelson was given to Zarah Stubbs for her work, Be soft, bloodied hands.

This is a really fascinating work, especially when you learn that it was transported to Nelson on the roof of a car - carefully wrapped of course, but still, it's an incredibly fragile work, and looks absolutely stunning the gallery space.

Zarah (Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland) is currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Elam. In much of her work, she explores her connection to both land and ancestry, focusing on complex relationships through her family's farming and conservation backgrounds in Waitomo. In this work, Zarah focuses on the treatment of her materials, and how the hands that stripped and beat the skin from this Houhere Rakau can gently redress it with adornments made from its hair. She relates this process to current environmental issues in Aotearoa. Those who have damaged our whenua should act with the abilities they have to fix it. Bloodied hands need to be gentle in order to conserve our whenua for our rangatahi.

Changing Threads is on at Refinery ArtSpace until 18 July.

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Can't get to Refinery ArtSpace to see Changing Threads?
How about we come to you!

Here's a VR walk-through of the exhibition.

Big thanks to Uniquely Nelson for creating the tour.

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Changing Threads 2026 at Refinary ArtSpace Virtual Tour | The Contemporary Fibre & Textile Art Awards and Exhibition | Changing Threads 2026

We've been getting lovely feedback on Changing Threads, especially from people who have returned a few times to really give themselves time to look at the works.

One piece that certainly deserves a second look, as well as some considered thinking, is 'Resource Management Act (1991)' by Gina Coatsworth's (Waitaha | Canterbury), which won the Hiwa | Ngā Toi Māori Award ($2000 cash prize).

Gina has three works in the exhibition. Our judges, especially Maureen Lander, were particularly effusive about Gina's work, and their layered meanings.

Gina says, "These works were created as part of a body of work examining my relationship to land and environment, my responsibilities in upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi and my aspirations for tamariki/mokopuna. I followed a kaupapa Māori research methodology, drawing on my knowledge of tukutuku to create patterns that tell stories of deforestation and environmental degradation following colonisation. Our family blankets have become a surface for these new patterns, which have been embroidered using aho-muka."

Changing Threads is on until Sat 18 July, open every day at Refinery ArtSpace.

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There are two textile-based workshops happening this week, including one by Colleen Plank, who was one of the very first award-winners for Changing Threads back in 2009! Since then she's been a finalist 13 times!

This year's winner of the Bernina Award was Tammy Savage, for her work 'Cutting In'.

Just to say first, that Bernina New Zealand have been supporting Changing Threads since the very beginning - thanks Bernini - we appreciate you!

Tammy Savage is a Nelson-based multimedia artist. She's primarily interested in colour, light and shadow, and how this is transformed through contrast, texture and depth.

"These soft hanging Jogakbo (Korean patchwork) sculptures were crafted using flat-felled or Korean Ssamsol seams" wrote Tammy. "The use of lightweight translucent fabric and film lighting gels create shadows that can move. Shapes and colours overlap each other and change."

"A meditation of sorts, with each cut made in the materials, more was revealed and another piece of me fell away, the parts that no longer served me. I would mourn my losses, gather up what was left and sew it back together, a healing. Each new seam became a backbone of strength, pushing the work forward, helping to add dimension, emboldening a form to take shape – my shape. A weightless structure, but still holding its form. That structure is what gives it value."

Changing Threads is at Refinery ArtSpace until 18 July. Open every day.

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It's nearly been a week already since we announced the awards for Changing Threads, so now it's time to shine some spotlights on the individual works, starting with the award winners.

First up is Lani Kalapu (Te Whanganui-ā-tara/Ueligitone/Wellington and Whakatū/Nelesoni/Nelson) who took out two awards for his piece, Maiden X.
- Supreme Award ($5000 cash prize)
- Hiwa | Arts Pasifika Award ($2000 cash prize)

It was so lovely to have Lani and his family at the Awards, so that people could congratulate him in person.

In the photos, that's Lani with his mum, Lesa Kalapu in the red coat, and his nana, Ann Fletcher. And if you haven't spotted it already, the other photos feature Lani wearing his own artwork.

A stunning work on so many levels.

Changing Threads is open every day at Refinery ArtSpace at 114 Hardy Street until Sat 18 July.

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