Unsettling Nairn Street

“Learn your small story. Know your place (literally). Fill in the silences with words.” 
— Richard Shaw 

Inspired by author Richard Shaw’s trilogy exploring his Pākehā whakapapa and its relation to colonial legacies — The Forgotten Coast (2021), The Unsettled (2024) and The Good Settler (2026) — Unsettling Nairn Street invites seven contemporary artists to respond to the ground floor rooms of Nairn Street Cottage. 

The Pākehā story of the Cottage begins with the New Zealand Company’s contentious division of Wellington into 1,100 one-acre sections. Plot Acre 53 was sold to George Duppa before being purchased by William and Catherine Wallis, who arrived from England aboard the Southern Cross in 1857. William, a carpenter, built the cottage on Nairn Street himself, and it was home to the Wallis whānau for three generations before opening as Wellington’s first house museum in 1980.  

In Unsettling Nairn Street, each artist engages with the historic site; its materiality and the layered narratives embedded within the cottage and the whenua on which it stands. From a nursery inspired by the 1860s, where fragments of early wallpaper survive, to a kitchen evoking the 1970s, the artists stir up the past, inviting visitors to experience Nairn Street Cottage and the stories and histories it represents anew.   

This is a City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi pop-up exhibition.   

Artists: Heidi Brickell, Paula Collier, Riki Pirihi, Isabella Lepoamo, George Turner, Daniel Unverricht and Erica van Zon.

Winter opening hours 

Free entry 

Open Saturdays and Sundays, 12–4pm. 

Guided tours: 12pm and 3pm
Tours are free, no booking required.

Please note: Nairn Street Cottage is a small historic space, so tour places are limited. Our friendly hosts look forward to welcoming you. 

Artist Bios  

Erica van Zon lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Her work traverses eras, places, and personal fascinations, stringing memories into new narratives. Driven by fond obsession, she reconstructs objects and moments by hand – often using labour-intensive forms such as embroidery, ceramics, beading, and tapestry. 

Heidi Brickell (Te Hika o Pāpāuma, Ngāi Tara, Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Apakura, Airihi, Kōtirana, Ingarangi) is a contemporary visual artist based in Ōtaki. Playful and intuitive, Brickell’s art practice connects the indigeneity of her ancestors and how they saw the world, to the changing and shifting materialities of te ao hurihuri. 

Daniel Unverricht lives and works in Carterton. Born and bred in Hastings, his oil paintings often return to small-town streets after dark, emptied of people. Working on a small scale, he renders light and its effects with precision — the weak flood of a streetlight, bright light catching on traffic sign — evoking a sense of brooding unease. 

George Turner lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Working across sculpture and moving image, their practice builds environments where ecology, technology, and colonial history converge. Through materials such as beeswax, gorse, fungi, fire, and simulation, Turner treats land as archive and wound — haunted, damaged, and an ongoing collaborator.  

Riki Neihana Pirihi (Ngāti Wai/Ngāti Māhanga Hourua/Patuharakeke) lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His work spans multiple disciplines, including composition, performance, sound art, production, and research. He has led and conducted large-scale ensemble projects, performed in a wide range of collaborative settings, and created work for both recorded and live contexts. His ongoing  projects include solo and group performances, conduction ensembles, DJ sets, film composition, and sound-based installations 

Paula Collier is a sculptor based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, whose practice is site- responsive, process-based, and experiential. Collier’s installations engage with the sensory and spatial qualities of architectural sites and the material memory embedded within them. Her practice prioritises the relational qualities of space, light, time, and material — inviting the viewer into an experiential encounter with these elements. 

Isabella Lepoamo is a Melbourne-based artist who grew up in Waihōpai Invercargill. Working across sculpture, textiles, painting, and installation, her work draws on her Sāmoan and Scottish heritage to transform the remnants of daily life into something devotional — balancing nostalgia with social observation, and tracing how identity is preserved through the simplest gestures.