Doors open on hidden art in Unlocked Collections tours for Artweek

Associate Professor Linda Tyler stands with two works by Lisa Reihana that are part of the University of Auckland's art collection in its new science faculty building. Photo / Greg Bowker

Right from the outset, plans for the University of Auckland's new state-of-the-art science faculty included art spaces which would show connections between the two disciplines.

Opened in July, the building is now home to 10 schools and departments as well as about 40 pieces of contemporary art displayed where staff, students and visitors can take them in.

Now the public gets a chance to see the building, and learn more about the art, in one of the Unlocked Collections tours for Artweek Auckland. Held annually, Unlocked Collections are a rare chance to discover the incredible art hidden away behind ordinarily closed office doors or in institutions and public buildings many of us don't visit.

Associate Professor Linda Tyler, the inaugural director of the Centre for Art Studies at Auckland University, hopes a tour of the science faculty will show how a working building can incorporate art and uplift those who use it.

Tyler says designer Patrick Clifford, of Architectus, included art spaces on initial plans for the building.

"They made sure there was art space because they realised, as I do, that art really humanises a building and allows people a stake in part of their environment," she says.

"Since the building opened this year, we've found people taking ownership of the art works and when we've had to loan them or take them away for exhibitions - the Robin White, for example, went to the United Nations in New York this year - there was a huge outcry because it had disappeared for a short time.

"That's one of the really rewarding aspects of putting art works into buildings used by staff because they begin to look after them and see them as their own."

As much as possible, the art - everything from photographs by Lisa Reihana to giant painted barkcloth by Robin White and Ruha Fifita - relates to science.

Tyler says White and Fafita's triptych Sui i moana is a prime example, linked to a project by the Pew Research Group to look at the proposed Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.

Fiona Pardington's photo of extinct huia birds, in the building's foyer, has sparked interest from overseas visitors keen to know more about her work photographing museum collections.

"It [the art] brings people from a science background in and provides a greater awareness and appreciation of what artists are doing and how artists, too, are interested in science."

• Starting on Monday, law firm Chapman Tripp, the ANZ and BNZ banks, the Wallace Arts Trust, Spark, and the university offer free behind-the-scenes tours of their art collections which must be booked. heartofthecity.co.nz/artweek for bookings.