Image: Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland
Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland will present ‘touchsprings’, a collaborative exhibition by Miranda Bellamy and Amanda Fauteux that examines interdependent relationships within living systems. The exhibition will bring together research-based, interdisciplinary and site-responsive work by the Ōtepoti Dunedin and Canada-based artists from 26 September to 12 December 2026.
Plants and the stories they carry form the connecting thread across the exhibition. According to the gallery, the works use plants as prompts for considering different ways of seeing and relating, linking questions of ecology, history and systems of knowledge. The presentation will include material spanning subjects from the invention of kerosene to plant taxonomy, tracing what the artists describe through the exhibition’s title as the hidden seeds that set things in motion.
‘touchsprings’ is a word coined by Bellamy and Fauteux to describe moments of action that produce irreversible and unintended consequences. The title provides a framework for works that look at how relationships within living systems develop, and how apparently minor interventions can generate wider effects over time. The gallery has characterised the project as a significant gathering of bodies of work rather than a single-medium presentation.
Bellamy and Fauteux collaborate with diverse contributors on conceptually rooted and site-responsive projects. Their recent solo exhibitions have been presented at Hocken Gallery in Ōtepoti Dunedin, MSVU Art Gallery in Kjipuktuk Halifax, Nova Scotia, and YYZ Artists Outlet in Tkaronto Toronto. In 2024, the pair were Frances Hodgkins Fellows at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, the University of Otago. They divide their time between the Sikniktuk district of Mi’kma’ki in Canada and Ōtepoti, Aotearoa.
The exhibition will also include two works made with Colleen Coco Collins, an interdisciplinary artist of Irish, French and Odawa descent whose practice includes songwriting, performance, poetry and visual art. Collins is based in rural Port Greville in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia. The project acknowledges support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the New Brunswick Arts Board and Tyrewise, as well as contributions from individuals and organisations including the Botany Department at the University of Otago and The Audio Foundation.
Gus Fisher Gallery is operated by the University of Auckland and is located at 74 Shortland Street in Auckland Central. The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm Tuesday through Friday and from 10am to 4pm on Saturdays. An opening event for ‘touchsprings’ is scheduled at the gallery on Friday 25 September 2026 from 5.30pm to 7.30pm, with the exhibition continuing through 12 December.
