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Kōrero: Crafts and applied arts

Kelly Thompson, 'Several worlds', 1996

Textile artist Kelly Thompson was a senior lecturer at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in the early 2000s before taking up academic positions overseas. 'Several worlds', a work on a piece of fabric more than 5 metres long, was included in a 1996 solo exhibition at the Suter Art Gallery in Nelson called Passages & Passports. The exhibition travelled to other galleries in New Zealand over the next two years.

'Several worlds' records sea journeys and meetings between different cultures. The two figures toward the right-hand end of the work are based on a watercolour made during English explorer James Cook's first voyage to the southern hemisphere (1768–71) entitled 'An English naval officer bartering with a Maori'. 

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Kelly Thompson

by Kelly Thompson

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Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins rāua ko Lucy Hammonds, Crafts and applied arts – Craft in the 1990s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/interactive/45332/kelly-thompson-several-worlds-1996 (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Douglas Lloyd Jenkins rāua ko Lucy Hammonds, i tāngia i te 16 May 2014.