The Ockham Lecture series is an annual programme of lectures and panel discussions that critically engage with craft, design, and architecture. Director of Audience and Insight Puawai Cairns recently presented her Ockham Lecture in connection to Tīhāte!, a project in the Objectspace exhibition Pohewa Pāhewa: a Māori design kaupapa which demonstrates how t-shirt design outcome is used by Māori to show affiliations, share protest messages, and commemorate important moments. Puawai is a co-author of the book Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance, along with Curator History Stephanie Gibson, and then Curator Mātauranga Māori Matariki Williams. Here we’re reproducing some of her kōrero from the lecture as well as contributions from Stephanie Gibson about some of the tees that are featured in the book and why museums collect them as taonga.Read more

A protest movement you might have heard about, which I’ve been following closely, is the protest occupation against the North Dakota pipeline at Standing Rock in the United States. The Dakota Access Pipeline (represented online by the hashtag #NODAPL No Dakota Access Pipeline) has prompted protests across the United States asRead more