Open Late
Experience the Gallery after-dark at our free Open Late events, where art, music and creativity come together for an unforgettable night out. Explore the Gallery in a whole new light with live performances, hands-on activities, talks, food trucks and surprise moments.
It’s your chance to experience Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki like never before.
Event details
Join us for Open Late at the Gallery, our after-dark series where art, music, performance, food and creative surprises collide.
To celebrate Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now, we’re hosting an unmissable evening with local artists and performers bringing the show to life through poetry, movement, music and more.
Expect peotry readings from Jiaqiao Liu and Zephyr Zhang and contemporary performance from artist Xin Ji and painter Tony Guo’s SPACE DRAG, curated specially for Forever Tomorrow.
Enjoy live music and beats from Ersha Island 二沙岛, Raging Flowers and DJ EDYONTHEBEAT plus food and drinks from local favourites Sumthin Dumplin and Lucky Mate.
Entry to Open Late is free and free exhibition spaces in the Gallery will be open. Tickets to Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now must be purchased separately.
Read on for the full line-up of the night.
Open Lates are proudly supported by Auckland Council and the City Centre Targeted Rate.
Music
Location: Te Ātea | North Atrium
Sink into the sounds and enjoy a musical journey that moves fluidly across time and place. From the layered Chinese–Aotearoa soundscapes by Ersha Island 二沙岛 to the quirky indie pop of Raging Flowers to the high‑energy, genre‑blurring sets of local crowd‑favourite EDYONTHEBEAT, these sessions invite you to listen, unwind and connect.
Poetry readings
Location: Te Ātea | North Atrium
Poets Zephyr Zhang and Jiaqiao Liu perform specially commissioned pieces in response to the exhibition Forever Tomorrow. Their brand-new works will get you pondering what our futures might look like.
Artist and curator talks
Location: Level 1 exhibition spaces
Join us for insightful talks inside the exhibition with artist Liu Xi, and curator Hutch Wilco. Tickets are required for entry to the exhibition – grab a ticket at the front desk or level 1 to attend events inside the exhibition space.
Curated dance performance
SPACE DRAG
7pm to 7:15pm: Inside Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now exhibition space, level 1
8:45pm to 9pm: Te Ātea | North Atrium
For one night only, artist and dance practitioner, Xin Ji will perform a curated piece, SPACE DRAG, inspired by Forever Tomorrow alongside painter Tony Guo. Xin and Tony will first perform in the exhibition, then later in the evening in Te Ātea | North Atrium.
The performance unfolds through an exploration of the craft languages of a dancer and a painter, body and image, gesture and surface. Developed through Xin and Tony’s fellowship collaboration, the work is part of an ongoing development, opening a shared space that centres the practitioner rather than the practice.
This work has grown out of Xin Ji’s Asian Artists’ Fund Creative Fellowship, administered by Satellites with support from Creative New Zealand, Foundation North and Auckland Council.
Xin Ji
Xin Ji is a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, performer, and educator based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. His practice moves across live performance, screen dance, physical theatre and interdisciplinary collaboration, often exploring identity, embodiment, transformation, and the relationship between personal history and the body.
Tony Guo
Tony Guo is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist predominantly working in oil painting. His practice investigates notions of embodied history and queer survival through the use of absurdism, creating works in which moments of whimsy mask or stretch existential anguish. Tony’s paintings often show figures involved in apparently specific situations, yet these resist conventional narrative development or psychological explanation.
Image credit: Jiaqi Tang
Food and drink
Location: Forecourt and Te Ātea | North Atrium
5:30 pm 9:30pm
Hang out at our pop‑up food court. Treat yourself to local favourites from the much‑loved Tāmaki classic Sumthin Dumplin and Lucky Mate with irresistibly soft steamed buns. Chocolate steamed buns are a must try! Be sure to grab one, or two, of their bubble teas to share with a friend.
Hands-on activities
Location: Library, mezzanine
5:30pm to 9:30pm
Drop into our creative making space inside the E H McCormick Library and Archive during the evening to make a fun creation.
