Unreal Canterbury: 26 May – 20 June 2026

posted in: Eastside Gallery, Past | 0

Opening event: 5.30-7pm, Tuesday 26 May. All welcome.

Floor talks with the Curator will take place every Saturday at 11am throughout the show.

Unreal Canterbury brings together 11 artists whose works tilt the familiar, unsettle the expected, and reimagine the region. Canterbury appears as a place both real and slipping: braided rivers and devastating floods sit alongside scorched and ravaged earth; the land – and our identity – is staked and challenged. Familiar touchstones become strange and alien. Do we recognise ourselves in the messaging of a clean, green landscape and a shiny, rebuilt city, or does the lived reality tell a different story?

Across painting, sculpture, photography, moving image, textile and monoprints, the exhibition invites viewers to consider not only what this place is, but what it has been, what it might become, and the versions of it we carry within us.

Artists: Cakkie Lou, Dusty Urchin, Ross Ellen, Joe Furniss, Judy Rogers, Meg Maguire, Milly Brown, Olivia Mercer, Ros Huppert, Sarah Brown and Tom McCone.

Location: 388 Worcester St, free parking and entry.

Opening Hours: Wed-Thu: 11am-5pm | Fri-Sat: 10am-5pm

Artists Top L-R: Joe Furniss, Milly Brown, Judy Rogers, Tom McCone, Ros Huppert, Cakkie Lou, Meg Maguire, Sarah Brown, Ross Ellen and Olivia Mercer.
Unreal Canterbury-24
Y Back wall
Unreal Canterbury-32
Unreal Canterbury-41
HuppertLandrover1957
Ros Huppert, "The Arrival, 1957," oil on canvas, 2024
image0 (5)
Sarah Brown, "Land/Whenua," carpet in recycled frame, 2026
hightime#1
Ross Ellen, "High Time #1," acrylic monoprint on paper, 2026
Tom McCone
Tom McCone, "Circuitry," audio visual, 2026
Meg cropped
Meg Maguire, "The Still Point," oil on canvas, 2025