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The Ashburton Art Gallery's first touring exhibition by Lyn Plummer is currently being hosted at the Eastern Southland Gallery in Gore. Each leg of the tour has involved a complete rethink of the way in which the exhibition will be presented. Each installation in the series is individual and relates specifically to the particular gallery's architecture and ambience and also accretes new forms relating to other concepts underpinning this large project. 188 new works were prepared by the artist for the space in Gore. The exhibition will travel to Australia in 2009.

I have been lucky enough to escape for the weekend to visit Wellington, take in WOW (World of Wearable Art) Awards, Te Papa and being an election year meet with Chris Finlayson (Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage for the National Party). On arriving in Wellington my first priority was to go and see “Rita Angus: Life & Vision” at Te Papa. Having written my article last week on the vibrant state of arts and culture in rural New Zealand I was equally enthused to see the number of people who like me were a little over eager, were early for opening and were waiting for 10am when they would be able to enter the exhibition. A crowd of people waited including a large number of young people, both teenagers and primary school groups.

Modulations: Cantata Reconfigured is the Ashburton Art Gallery's first touring exhibition. It opened here at the AAG in July 2007 and has since been hosted by the Southland Museum & Art Gallery where it was visited by over 10,000 people. The exhibition then travelled to The Forrester Gallery in Oamaru (incredible historic building on the main Street of Oamaru) and is now at the Eastern Southland Gallery (often refered to as the Goregenheim, apologies if my spelling is incorrect).

Well off to Darfield this afternoon, hoping to remember the way. About an hours drive from Ashburton into the Selwyn District. The Arts Council there is a hard working motivated group who have driven the development of the Selwyn District's Art Gallery. They also coordiante an Art Week and generally keep New Zealand's culture alive and well in their community. Being totally volunteer run, they are now looking to take the next step and hire a staff member.

Well, here I am in a Mccafe testing the Gallery's spunky new website, planning a day of poodling (from the verb to poodle meaning to strut like a poodle) around Dunedin Galleries, searching for a place to submit a node. Apparently I have less than five minutes credit remaining, time to go and do some work, will be thinking of some much more interesting content to add later in the day. Hi Philip, wishing you well with deciphering all that pink stuff!!!

Kathy

The Ashburton Art Gallery will over the next six months be carrying out a series of surveys in order to better understand the community it serves. The Gallery last undertook a survey of its members in 2005 and implemented changes to its services as a result of this survey.

As the Gallery is preparing for a major stage in its development, Gallery Manager/Curator Kathryn Mitchell feels that now is the time to make a concerted effort to gather information on the Ashburton District community.