Reuben Friend (Ngāti Maniapoto) has been awarded the Creative New Zealand-Blumhardt Foundation Curatorial Internship for 2008-09, based at TheNewDowse in Lower Hutt. It is to provide opportunities for emerging curators and artists to develop curatorial skills and experience on exhibitions of decorative arts and design.

For Reuben Friend, the internship is an exciting opportunity to build his curatorial skills under the guidance of experienced mentors. He will also be able to develop from concept through to curating an exhibition.

“Opportunities like this internship are essential to nurture and challenge the next generation of New Zealand curators. This internship will complement and enhance my current study and work in Māori decorative art and design, which I believe has huge potential in terms of how it is displayed and interpreted in museums and art galleries” he says.

“Plastic Māori” is the title of the exhibition that Reuben Friend is developing. The exhibition will focus on the work of contemporary Māori artists working in “new” synthetic materials like plastics and perspex and addresses the complexities of “authenticity” in Māori art and identity in the 21st century. Artists whose work will be in the exhibition include Gina Matchitt, Rangi Kipa and George Nuku.

Reuben Friend is completing the three-month internship over a six-month period to balance his work and study commitments.

He is the arts advisor to Rangitāne o Wairārapa Iwi Incorporated, and is also completing a Masters in Māori Visual Arts at Massey University while working on new paintings for an upcoming exhibition. For this young artist/curator the future holds lots of potential and exciting opportunities.

Reuben Friend’s exhibition, fulfilling the Creative New Zealand-Blumhardt Foundation Curatorial Internship “Plastic Māori”, will open in the Blumhardt Gallery at TheNewDowse on 6 March 2009 and runs through to September 2009.