Since 2005, when et al.’s the fundamental practice was first presented at the Venice Biennale, amid heated debate, there have been ongoing conversations about Aotearoa’s place at this major international contemporary art event. What do we bring to Venice? How do we represent ourselves? And what value does participation bring to Aotearoa’s artists and wider visual arts community?

Join participants from the 2026 Learning from Venice Workshop for a forum at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. This group travelled to Venice in May 2026, where they studied Biennale projects, gained new insights into and developed fresh thinking about this long-established institution.

They will share what they saw and learned, and consider Aotearoa’s evolving relationship with the Venice Biennale. The conversation will also ask bigger questions about whether Aotearoa should be represented at the Biennale and how that representation might take shape.

 

About the discussion

The forum will be introduced by Natasha Conland, curator of the fundamental practice and the conversation will be led by Learning from Venice co-leaders Christina Barton and Hanahiva Rose.

Together with programme participants, they will reflect on, test and offer new thinking on what has become an established but contested part of New Zealand’s international strategy for the visual arts.

There will be an opportunity for audience Q&A at the end of the talk.

The talk is free, but spaces are limited. Please book to avoid disappointment.

Book now

 

Before the talk

Feel free to come earlier and explore the fundamental practice before the Gallery closes at 5pm. Then head to the Clock Tower doors, which open from 5pm for the 5:30pm talk in the Auditorium.

 

This programme is presented in partnership with OCAA, The Chartwell Trust, and Elam Fine Arts, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

the fundamental practice

Presented in Aotearoa for the first time since its 2005 debut at the Venice Biennale, this multisensory installation combines five moving ‘autonomous systems’ with computer-generated voices and sounds in a dystopian orchestra. The work forms a layered exploration of belief systems, extremism and its influence on individual freedom and collective life. 

As they move, computer-animated voices emerge from the units, espousing a range of human beliefs. Each unit carries oblique signs and numbers, as if part of an otherwise coherent group activity, factory, institution or even a new religion. 

Acquired for the Gallery’s collection in 2008, the fundamental practice remains one of the most significant and debated works in recent New Zealand art history. 

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