Nick Austin

What Did People Do All Day? presents a series of new sculptures by Nick Austin, alongside earlier works that together explore some of the recent concerns of his practice. These artworks reflect on the passage of time, stages of life, legacy, and place, bringing found objects together in Austin’s characteristically thoughtful way – with generosity, care, and deep consideration.

Threaded through this exhibition are different ways to think about collections and collecting. In particular, Austin’s works create opportunities for people to consider some of the meeting points that exist between collections, people, and stories. His works prompt consideration of the way in which objects and materials accumulate and shed information as they move between different contexts – across generations, through time, and between domestic and institutional spaces. His sculptural assemblage Digital Oils (2025) is a quasi-social history display centring on a collection of photographs that Austin came across in the cloth-gloved care of Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena. There are other echoes of museological and archival conventions across the exhibition, extending from modes of display, to the way in which objects are grouped and inscribed.

Archives and collections are sites where objects become loosened from their people, despite the best efforts of cataloguing. Austin’s To Be a Rest Home (2025) prompts thoughts about artists and their legacies, pointing toward some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most celebrated women artists, whose names now circulate like free radicals within the corporate world of aged care. What Did People Do All Day? is also punctuated by ways to think about time and how it is marked, measured, and occupied. From Contractions (23 March 2010) to Breath Spectrum (2025), Austin has made works that reflect on the arc of a lifetime, from urgent minutes of birthing through to the more elastic hours of later life, punctuated by the hourly news bulletin.

Nick Austin (b.1979 Whangārei) lives and works in Ōtepoti Dunedin. He received his BVA from Auckland University of Technology Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau in 2001, and his MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2004. Austin was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka in 2012. What Did People Do All Day? is the second exhibition in Suite 2026. Suite is an ongoing exhibition series that presents recent work by artists living and working in Ōtepoti Dunedin.

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Ka whakaatuhia a What Did People Do All Day? i tētahi raupapa whakaairo hou nā Nick Austin, ki te taha tou o ētahi atu o āhana mahi nō mua, ā, e āta tirohia ana ētahi o ō ōhona māharahara ki tāhana mahi toi nō nā tata tou nei toko ake ai.. Ka whakaatahia e ēnei mahika toi te haereka o te wā, te hurika o te ao, te tukuka ihotaka, me te tūraka waewae, ā, e whakaemihia ana hoki ētahi kitehaka i tā te whanoka whaiaro o Austin – me he kākau tapatahi, he rika tauwhiro, he manawa popore rā anō.

Ko te miro e rakitāmiro ai ki tēnei whakaaturaka, ko te huhua o kā momo whakaaro o te takata mō te whakaemiemi, mō te kohikohi anō hoki. Ko te mea nui o tā Austin mahi, ko te wāhi ki te takata ki te whakaaro mō kā tūhonotaka i waeka i kā kohika, kā tākata me te pakiwaitara. Mā āhana mahi e toko ake ai te whakaaro o te momo whakaahutaka me te tukuka kōrero o kā mea, o kā momo papaka hoki i ā rātou e nekeneke ana i waeka i kā horopaki rerekē – puta noa i kā reaka, te rere o te wā, ā, i waeka hoki i kā wāhi ā-kāika me kā wāhi ā-whakanōhaka hoki. Ko tana huika whakairo Digital Oils (2025) he whakaaturaka o te momo tāhuhu kōrero o te pāpori e aro pū atu ana ki tētahi kohika whakaahua i heiputia e Austin ki kā rika tauwhiro o te Kohika o Hākena. Puta noa i te whakaaturaka nei, ka rakona ētahi atu kārakaraka nō te tikaka mātai whare taoka, te tikaka pūraka anō hoki, e whātoro atu ana ki kā āhua o te whakaatu, ki te tikaka o te whakatōpū, te tikaka hoki o te whakatāka o aua mea.

Ko kā pūraka, ko kā kohika he wāhi e whakawehewehe ana kā taoka i ō rātau tākata, ahakoa te whakapau werawera o te kaiwhakarāraki. Ko kā whakaaro ka toko ake i tā Austin To Be a Rest Home (2025) ko ērā e hākai ana ki kā rikatoi, ki ā rātau taoka tuku iho, ā, ka aru atu ki ētahi o kā rikatoi wāhine e kōrerohia ana ki kā taumata katoa o Aotearoa, ā, ka hōrapa ināianei ki kā pakitara o kā pakihi o te ao tiaki kaumātua. Kai What Did People Do All Day? hoki te arotahi kia whakaaro ai te kaimātakitaki mō te āhuataka o te wā, te tohu atu, te ineka, me te whakamahika. Mai i Contractions (2010) ki Breath Spectrum (2025), ko waihaka e Austin ētahi mahi whakaata i te pewa o te oraka o te takata, mai i kā miniti kōhukihuki o te whānutaka mai o te pēpi tae noa ki kā hāora pīkore o te kaumātua, nā te karere o te hāora tērā i miramira ai.

Ka noho mai, ka mahi mai hoki a Nick
Austin (i whānau mai i te tau 1979 i Whangārei) ki Ōtepoti. I whakawhiwhia ki a ia tana Tohu Paetahi BVA i Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau i te tau 2001 me tana Tohu Paerua MFA i te Kura Whakairo Ātaka ki Elam (Elam School of Fine Arts) i te tau 2004. I tohua a Austin ki te tūraka Tauira Matua Frances Hodgkins ki Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka i te tau 2012. Ko What Did People Do All Day? tāhana whakaaturaka tuarua ki Suite 2026. Ko Suite tētahi raupapa whakaaturaka e whakaatuhia ana ka mahi nō nā tata nei o kā rikatoi e noho ana, e mahi hoki ana ki Ōtepoti.