specimens kept in museums reflect stories of ecological loss
Artist Fiona Pardington presents Taharaki Skyside, a large-scale body photographic portraits for the Aotearoa New Zealand stand at Venice Art Biennale 2026. Developed in collaboration with filmmaker and photographer Neil Pardington and curated by Felicity Milburn and Chloe Cull, the exhibition looks at taxidermied birds found in museum collections across Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Through carefully staged images of threatened and extinct species, Pardington examines the intertwined histories of ecological loss, colonial collection and cultural memory.
The photographs isolate each bird against a dark background, drawing attention to the textures of the plumage, beak, eyes and posture. The works depict species endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, including the extinct huia and laughing owl, along with highly vulnerable birds that are still under threat today. Although the subjects are museum pieces, Pardington avoids presenting them as static archival objects. Soft lighting and close framing give the portraits a quiet intimacy, allowing the preserved birds to feel almost alive.
installation images by Neil Pardington, bird portraits by Fiona Pardington
birds as cultural and spiritual carriers
THE plan draws on more than two decades of Fiona Pardington’s engagement with museum collections and photographic still life. Her practice frequently reexamines taoka and natural history specimens held in institutional archives, questioning the systems through which objects, bodies, and cultures have historically been classified and contained. In Taharaki Skyside, these concerns extend to ornithology and environmental collapse, while remaining grounded in Māori understandings of manu as spiritual mediators and ancestral presences.
In Maori cosmology, birds carry genealogical, ecological and spiritual significance, acting as messengers between the human and divine worlds. The very title of the exhibition moves upwards towards horizons and skies, reflecting mortality, transcendence and timeless connection.
The artist approaches the birds with a sense of care and relationship. Signs of taxidermy repair, stitched wings and worn surfaces remain visible in the photographs, acknowledging the fragility of the specimens and the stories attached to them. Images also become records of human efforts to preserve what has already been altered or displaced.
the works depict species endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand
connecting Venice and Aotearoa through light and colour
During a visit to Venice in 2024, Pardington noticed similarities between the skies above the lagoon city and those of the Hunter Hills near Waimate in Te Waipounamu, where she lives. Together with Neil Pardington, who is the project’s creative director, he translated these atmospheric tones into the exhibition design through softly lit colored frames surrounding the photographs. The installation subtly connects Venice and Aotearoa New Zealand, despite their geographical distance, creating a common visual horizon in the hemispheres.
The exhibition also refers to Dante’s vision of the Southern Hemisphere as the site of Purgatory, approaching extinction as an ongoing condition shaped by colonization, environmental exploitation, and institutional systems of knowledge production.
Pardington’s photographs bring together themes of disappearance, memory and care with remarkable restraint, creating encounters that feel personal and immediate. Each portrait asks what it means to look closely at beings that have already disappeared or may soon disappear, while confronting the structures that contributed to their disappearance.
Presented at a time of increasing global attention to the collapse of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge systems, the work positions photography as a means of repair as well as documentation. Pardington’s images hold the genre in a space between mourning, memory and constant presence.
Huia, Heteralocha acutirostris, adult female, deposited 19 April 1967. Canterbury Museum collection (AV 21,289), Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand 2025
Tui, Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae, albino; Collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (OR. 026541), Wellington, New Zealand New Zealand 2025
Toroa, southern royal albatross, Diomedea epomophora; collection of the South Canterbury Museum (2025/078.1), Timaru, Aotearoa New Zealand
Moho, South Island, Porphyrio hochstetteri, possible sub-adult, Deas Cove, Thompson Sound, Te Rua-o-te-Moko Fiordland, 1851; Collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (OR. 022236), Wellington, New Zealand New Zealand 2025
Tawaki, Fiordland crested penguin, Eudyptes pachyrhynchus; South Canterbury Museum collection (2008/157.1), Timaru, Aotearoa New Zealand 2024
