Join us for opening night Friday 31st July from 6pm, at Dunedin Community Gallery, 26 Princes Street
Little Lives is a collaborative exhibition by Joanne Craig and Zenobia Southcombe celebrating the quiet beauty and significance of the small, often overlooked lives that share Aotearoa’s landscapes.
Little Lives invites visitors to slow down, look more closely, and consider the richness of the natural world that surrounds us. The exhibition will bring together a diverse range of works exploring Aotearoa’s native birds and other wildlife, creating an immersive experience that moves between intimate observation and larger-than-life encounters.
While rooted in the natural world, Little Lives also reflects on what we value in our own lives. In a society that often celebrates the extraordinary or highly visible, the exhibition offers a gentle reminder that worth is not determined by size, status or recognition. It resonates with the te ao Māori understanding that every living being carries its own mauri, and that from recognising this inherent worth grows a deep sense of care, respect and responsibility.
In keeping with the exhibition’s celebration of the inherent worth of every life, a portion of proceeds from artwork sales will be donated to Hagar International, supporting its work restoring hope, healing and freedom to survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking.
Many lives are lived quietly, privately, out of the limelight.
They appear before us – perhaps fleetingly, shyly. We glimpse them, think about them for a moment.
But though our thoughts about them are ephemeral, the significance and beauty of them are not.
This exhibition is a celebration of Little Lives.