»Catherine Griffiths: Walk With Me« solo exhibition

Griffiths’ evocative typographic practice spans a vast range of fields and contexts, including sculpture, gallery-based installation, video, photography, architecture, and activism. In each situation, she retains an extraordinary agency to self-determine her treatment of type, be it in choosing to work in public or private spaces, or in determining whether to prioritise legibility or explore the abstract and material potentiality of letterforms.

Griffiths has practised internationally for over four decades, including exhibiting in Australia, Chile, France, the USA, China, South Korea, and Aotearoa. »Catherine Griffiths: Walk With Me« builds on two prior surveys of Griffiths’ practice, the 2019 exhibition/publication  »catherine griffiths : SOLO IN [ ] SPACE«, curated by Zhihua Duan (The Space Gallery/ Pocca publishing, Shanghai, 2019), and the recent exhibition »Catherine Griffiths: Out of Line«, curated by Ela Egidy and Megan Patty (The Design Gallery, University of Melbourne, 2025), which tours in 2026. Griffiths lives in Karekare, West Auckland, and also spends time intermittently in Paris.

Read the curatorial essay by Stephen Cleland here

[more images to come]

»Light Weight O« / »GAZ/A« concertina / »A Whakapapa, two lines of women«
photos: Samuel Hartnett

EVENTS

Fiona Jack and Catherine Griffiths | In Conversation
Thursday 7 August 2025, 5:30pm

Please join us for a conversation between Catherine Griffiths and Fiona Jack, artist and current Head of School at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.

Over the years, both practitioners have engaged in various forms of activism within their respective practices. Jack has produced banners and flags, led parades, and facilitated various expressions of protest, such as gathering, organising, and collaborating with the public to examine the disparities and injustices that continue to impact societies and communities. Jack’s banners symbolise modes of collective expression and reflect her longstanding interest in drawing attention to political histories.

Similarly, Griffiths has long employed typography and design for social and political commentary, often in the guise of type-specimen posters, publishing, and initiating community projects. Within the design field, she has been vocal about the underrepresentation of women in Aotearoa’s most prestigious design awards, and has actively facilitated alternative sites for discourse, including the inaugural Designers Speak lunchtime series (2005), and international typography symposium, TypeSHED11 (2009). She founded the platform Designers Speak (Up), which led to the Directory of Women* Designers, and curated/led the 2019 poster and hīkoi project, Present Tense : Wāhine Toi Aotearoa, later published in 2023.

Speaking in the vicinity of Griffiths’ recently launched exhibition, »Walk With Me«, this conversation will explore how activism has materialised in their respective practices, and what it means to be a maker in Aotearoa in times of global unrest. 

»GAZ/A« concertina (detail) / photo: Samuel Hartnett

Eve de Castro-Robinson | Sound & Movement Work
with Kristian Larsen and Weichu Huang
Thursday 28th August, 5:30pm

Please join us Thursday 28 August 5:30pm, for a special in-gallery performance piece produced by one of New Zealand’s most renowned composers, Eve de Castro-Robinson. Together with performers Kristian Larsen and Weichu Huang, they will respond with sound and movement to »Catherine Griffiths | Walk With Me«.

Over de Castro-Robinson’s long career she has produced genre-defying compositions spanning orchestral, vocal, chamber, and theatrical, for performances in Aotearoa and internationally. She draws inspiration from an array of sources including hymns, sonic art, free jazz, poetry, punk, cinema, and abstract painting. A trained graphic designer, de Castro is uniquely placed to respond to not only Griffiths’ art practice, but to interpret her works as an expansive graphic score.

Eve de Castro-Robinson retired as Associate Professor in Composition from the University of Auckland in 2020, after 25 years, and works as a freelance composer, music consultant, interviewer, mentor and writer.

Kristian Larsen is a Tamaki Makaurau based multi-disciplinary artist: dancer / choreographer / musician / composer / writer / researcher / teacher / improviser. Working at the edges of contemporary dance and experimental music in live performance, Larsen’s performances describe relationships between the somatic and the acoustic through creative misuses of dance techniques and audio technologies. Larsen is a graduate of three of New Zealand's key dance institutions - UNITEC - PAS, The New Zealand School of Dance, and has a Masters and a Doctoral Degree in dance from the University of Auckland.

Weichu Huang (they/she) is a Chinese artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Since graduating in 2021 with a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts (Contemporary Dance), they have been working primarily in film and live performance. Weichu loves to collaborate and create work that exists at the junction of dance and broader artistic disciplines.