In 2025, 4 Auckland-based arts graduates were part of the WiPs pilot programme delivered in partnership with Samoa House Library and Parehuia alumni Dan Arps. We were excited by the conversations, learnings, and potential of this offering, and have designed a programme that will be delivered across Aotearoa as part of our 20th Anniversary programme.

The expanded programme aims to support early-career artists at a pivotal career stage and strengthen peer networks. The programme fosters diverse and multigenerational communities of art-making practice and nurtures the next generation of artists, providing them with guidance and support as they begin their professional careers. It also helps build engaged and critical communities around creative practices, encouraging dialogue and growth.

McCahon House is in the fortunate position through the Parehuia residency programme to have strong relationships with a cohort of established artists who are also skilled and experienced educators.  

We are pleased to announce the following Parehuia alumni as our mentors:

Dan Arps
Martin Basher
Ana Iti
Sefton Rani
Tiffany Singh
Sarah Smuts-Kennedy

Six artists will be selected from an open call for applications.

Works in Progress is funded by Manchester Trust and Hugo Charitable Trust.

Please complete this FORM to apply

Applications close 4pm Wednesday 17 June

STRUCTURE

Works In Progress aims to facilitate conversations around the work of early-career artists focused on developing their practice, both creatively and professionally. Drawing on the format of the critique or the studio visit, these conversations will be structured around each artist and can relate, for example, to a particular work or body of work, a professional skill they are wishing to develop, experimentation or creative growth, community and connection, building confidence and artistic clarity. The content of the mentorship will differ depending on the artist’s needs.

Over a 5-month period (August-December 2026) six artists will receive 4x one-to-one mentoring sessions, participate in 1x group session and 1x final critique and showing (in-person and online options).

1. One-to-One Mentoring
4x monthly session (in-person or online, August-December)
Focus:
- Practice development|
- Professional strategy
- Long- and short-term goals

2. Group Session
1x online group session (Thursday 15 October, tentative)
Including invited sector experts
Focus:
- Cross dialogue rather than only individual critique
- Peer-to-peer engagement
- Curating and writing
- Preparation for final showing and critique

3. Final Showing and Critique
1x end of programme showing and critique session (Thursday 3 December, tentative, location TBC)
Focus:
- “A sharing moment” rather than a curated exhibition
- Informal showing, presentation or installation
- Group critique session
- Opportunity to share feedback

APPLICATION CRITERIA

1. Applicants must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents of New Zealand at the time of entry.
2. Applicants must be able to commit to the 5-month mentor programme (see Structure above).
3. Works in Progress is designed for early-career artists working across the visual arts disciplines. Early-career is defined as an artist who has graduated in the last 5 years from tertiary providers in Aotearoa and show a commitment to their practice. Tertiary providers include universities, polytechnics, wānanga, art schools, or other formal training providers.

SELECTION PROCESS

1. Applications will be assessed by the 6 selected mentors.
2. A short list of applicants will be asked to take part in a brief online discussion with the McCahon House team prior to the final decision being made.
3. Assignment of artists to their mentors will be finalised by the McCahon House team in conjunction with the mentors.
4. Selection decisions and mentor assignment will be final.

Please complete this FORM to apply

Applications close 4pm Wednesday 17 June

Successful applicants will be notified mid-July for the programme to begin in early August.

Please read the requirements carefully as it is important that participating artists are committed and have the capacity to engage with the programme in full.

If you would like to discuss your application or require any assistance regarding the process please contact:

Tamara Rakich (Operations Manager)
tamara@mccahonhouse.org.nz

Works in Progress 2025 – Pilot Programme

For the 2025 pilot programme in 2025, we were pleased to work with alumni Dan Arps as the mentor and the following artists as the participants:

Antje Tamae Barke
Antje Tamae Barke is a Tokyo born, Pakeha artist who works pre-dominantly with sculpture, installation, and lens-based media to create immersive exhibitions that explore the subjective experience of socio-political history’s and economies through objects and spaces. Utilising the indexicality of objects and materials, Barke employs subversive gestures and interventions to create dialogue between aesthetic histories and issues of class struggle through the experience of a site. Reconstructing and deconstructing material and research-based references in order to transport one site into a poetic reference of another.

Barke completed her MFA with first class honours in 2019 (graduated 2022) and a BFA Hons in 2015 from Elam School of Fine Arts.

Jimmy Ma’ia’i
Jimmy Ma’ia’i is of Samoan and Scottish Heritage. His work explores identity, culture, and the factors which influence the development of these concepts. “Through sculpture, I often utilise everyday, readymade, and found materials, using them as the medium to examine these personal and cultural narratives.”

Ma’ia’i graduated in 2023 with a Master in Creative Practice from Unitec.

Te Ara Minhinnick
Te Ara Minhinnick’s work often involves collaboration, large-scale sculpture, and site-specific installation. “My practice is grounded in whenua, oneone, and uku; thinking with and through material, not only in terms of weight and site, but also as a form of intergenerational knowledge. Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly building a body of work that moves across locations and contexts from Tamaki Makaurau, to Otautahi, and most recently in Poneke, with the long-term intention of exhibiting whenua, internationally. As the work expands materially and geographically, I’m focused on the considerations of protocols that frame the work; especially the outcome or encounter when whenua is taken outside its original rohe. The questions I’m sitting with are as much about material movement as they are about relational accountability.”

Minhinnick gained an MFA from Whitecliffe in 2021.

Nathan Wilson
Nathan Wilson (Pakeha) is an artist, writer, and performer from Tamaki Makaurau, whose practice is a tentative investigation into the relationship between art and ideology. After studying politics and history at the University of Auckland, Wilson gained his second bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at Whitecliffe in 2023. Wilson’s interest in the visual arts is rooted in its connection to the political and the ideological, and his artistic output often takes the form of speculative or propositional critiques on this connection. Working in installation, sculpture, drawing and performance, Wilson’s research-based methodology influences the medium and form of his work.

After graduating from Whitecliffe, Wilson was one of the founding members of Pigeonhole, an artist’s collective with a focus on experimenting with strategies that sustainably enable artists to work and develop outside of the traditional post-graduate institutional/educational context.

Colin McCahon was a gifted teacher and mentor who made an important contribution to the lives of many New Zealand artists through classes at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and later at Elam School of Fine Arts. His legacy and commitment to developing the next generation of artists and the wider community is an important driver for the McCahon House education programme.

The first few years after graduating from art school is a critical juncture in an artist’s career, especially in the current financial climate. Works in Progress is a new programme which seeks to bridge the gap between graduation and professional practice - a need identified in the community.