Warm Sounds and Cold Twinkles (2024)

Image: Wayne Barrar, ‘Porifera, (type) 5 forms, from Oamaru.’ From a slide by Klaus D. Kemp, 2013, 2013, colour pigment print. Retrieved from Te Papa.

From September 2023 to May 2024, the suite of exhibitions Tēnei Papa Tīoi / This Swaying Earth was on display in Toi Art.

Curator Art Lizzie Bisley and Education Specialist Laura Jones invited music production and composition students from Massey University to explore the artworks and choose one to respond to with a musical composition. View the artworks, discover what was behind their choices, and then listen to their compositions.

“This online exhibit is the result of an exciting collaboration between Te Papa and the second year music production and composition students at Massey University in Pōneke Wellington. Throughout the students’ composition course, we were exploring ways that they could convey meaning through music, from the way we can use sound design to set a mood, how we can use musical structure to show development, to the way we might use particular instruments or sounds to imply different musical and cultural contexts.

This collaboration saw the students tour Te Papa’s Toi Art with curator Lizzie Bisley and museum education specialist Laura Jones, where the students were invited to choose an artwork and musically respond to the kōrero or kaupapa of that work. It was exciting to see how the music created demonstrates a wide variety of aesthetic and a range of different ways of exploring the themes and narratives connected with the chosen artworks. Many of the artworks prompted students to not only consider a musical response, but to also reflect on their own identity, exploring that through the artwork and their music.

The student’s work explores a range of works from Toi Art and proves to be an interesting way to further engaged with Te Papa’s art collection.

– Dr Jesse Austin-Stewart, Lecturer and Music Practice Major Coordinator, Te Rewa o Puanga - School of Music & Creative Media Production, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University”

To hear the works, click here.