Shift

December 2022 saw the end of an era for Canterbury Museum as they closed their doors for a 5 year long renovation. The vacant walls and empty corridors are thriving conditions for urban artists to bloom. So with that, Canterbury Museum put away their clippers and let the artists go wild. To celebrate this mammoth occasion, Canterbury Museum and exhibition curator Dr Reuben Woods cast their net wide and pulled in artists from all over the world as well as some of Aotearoa’s most celebrated artists.

With the doors closing to the public in December 2022, they reopened to the artists in early January 2023, artists and staff from the museum were working around the clock to not only fill these vacant spaces, but also store and catalogue every element of the museum in time for the grand opening of the SHIFT exhibition on the 27th January. In true fashion of graffiti and street art, these works were not preserved, instead they were permanently removed when the Museum officially closed their doors in April 2023 as they begun their 5 year rebuild. 

With so much redundant wall space, I took this opportunity to work with Reuben and the museum to secure multiple walls through out the museum. In the space of a week, I took on 4 walls as well as some collaborative walls with other artists.