Juliet Carpenter

This coming weekend marks the launch of the major new film, Heaven’s Blade, by Berlin-based Aotearoa New Zealand artist Juliet Carpenter at Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Filmed across Central Otago and Hawke’s Bay, Heaven’s Blade unfolds in a speculative world where the sun has become too intense for people to spend extended periods outdoors. Within an immersive and unsettling cinematic environment, the film’s observational approach follows two young girls in a multi-generational household as they navigate their relationship to light, visibility and the consequences of exposure.

Carpenter’s practice explores how images, perception, and subjectivity are constructed and mediated through film technologies. She holds a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland (2014) and graduated from the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main in 2022. In 2024, Carpenter was nominated for the Walters Prize for her outstanding contribution to contemporary art in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Please join us at 11am on Saturday 10 October for an opening weekend talk with Juliet Carpenter in Heaven’s Blade.
 

Noho ora mai,
Lauren Gutsell
Kairauhī Curator
Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Heaven’s Blade premieres as two unique exhibitions, presented concurrently at Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings Art Gallery during the summer of 2026–27.

[above: Juliet Carpenter Heaven’s Blade 2026 (film still). Courtesy of the artist.]