Join us at Objectspace on Thursday 29 May to hear from five Tāmaki Makaurau-based designers, artists and professionals that work with textiles. Inspired by PUPURITIA: Storytelling and Contemporary Textiles, each speaker will share a textiles related project, object or garment that has them inspired and maybe a bit envious.

Each speaker will make a case for their coveted project, and will share just why they wish it was theirs. Your speakers are Christopher Duncan, Doris de Pont, Jane Groufsky, Lela Jacobs and Whiro Walker.

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Jane Groufsky is Curator Social History at Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira and a member of the Objectspace board. Her research focuses on a social historical reading of printed and patterned textiles in Aotearoa and how these reflect changing cultural values and self-perception.

Over a 26 year career as a fashion designer, Doris de Pont worked with local artists and textile designers to create fashion collections to express an identity born in the cultural melting pot that is Aotearoa. In 2010, she sought to bring the importance of what we wear into the heart of the nation's cultural conversation by establishing the New Zealand Fashion Museum. Doris believes that looking at what we wear is a powerful lens to see and understand our world, its changing technology, social structures and people, and because we all wear clothes every day, it is a lens that is available to everyone.

Christopher Duncan is a contemporary craft practitioner based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland who specialises in hand-weaving textiles. Duncan began teaching himself weaving in 2012, starting on a small loom using gifted materials the interest grew into making finer more complex cloth. Through larger scale floors looms, weaving in a public space and a library of old and new yarn Duncan established an oeuvre of work and a personal style. For Duncan the construction of the cloth is an abstract process where the mind and body are tested over long periods of time. His practice moves between the making of textile for use in clothing and as object – challenging the idea of artisanal works as everyday useful objects.

Lela Jacobs is a hands-on designer based in Aotearoa, New Zealand, committed to thoughtful environmental choices and long-form local manufacturing. Grounded in the principles of zero-waste pattern-making, her work prioritizes textile integrity—honouring the craftsmanship, ecological impact, and rich histories woven into each fabric. Her collections embrace minimalism with a strong design focus, blending innovation with an understated, androgynous aesthetic. A monochromatic palette of blacks, greys, whites, neutrals, and specially commissioned prints accentuates conceptual silhouettes and bold lines, defining the distinctive essence of a Lela Jacobs piece.

Whiro Walker is a Māori multi-disciplinary artist currently based on the whenua of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei ki Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Whiro lives to explore the intersection between artificial and nature. Their practice incorporates mediums of video work, archival documentation, installation and textile. Their works Muri-ranga-whenua (2024) and Manawa Tītī (2023) are on display as part of our current exhibition, PUPURITIA: Storytelling and Contemporary Textiles.

I wish I'd made that: Five textile lovers on coveted projects