Teoteo, meaning something small in te reo Māori, celebrates and calls attention to the small things in our local environment, which are influenced, and can be threatened or preserved, through human behaviour. Lily Duval engages with our diverse and threatened lizard species in a series of detailed paintings of them in their local habitat. Lucy Hill explores the relationships that emerge with non-humans from human interaction with a local beach, through drawings and sculptures created using materials foraged on the shoreline.   

Lily Duval is an artist, writer and researcher based in Whakaraupō. Passionate about the unique biodiversity of Aotearoa, Lily works as the content creator and researcher for RNZ’s Critter of the Week, and illustrated the Penguin children’s book Critters of Aotearoa. Her recently published illustrated non-fiction book, Six-legged Ghosts: the insects of Aotearoa, will be available to purchase at the exhibition. Her detailed paintings highlight some of Aotearoa’s many and varied members of its unique herpetofauna that are resident in Whakaraupō. Through these works, Duval highlights and celebrates our lizards, raising awareness of their plight. 

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Lucy Hill grew up in Te Waipapa Diamond Harbour, and now lives in Ōtepoti, where she studied at Dunedin School of Art/Te Pūkenga. Her practice explores the interconnected relationships between humans and non-humans in everyday environments through the bodily movements of walking and swimming to observe, consider, reflect upon and (re)connect to land, awa, plants and animals both seen and unseen. In Teoteo, Hill reflects on the experience of a beach in Te Waipapa Diamond Harbour and its immediate surrounds, through drawings that use found materials (whenua) from the beach, rocks, seawater, sand, clay and plant matter, and clay works. The project explores and draws from personal connection(s) to land, sea, birds, fish and other creatures with whom we share Whakaraupō.