Good Trouble: 6 – 31 October

Opening Event: 5.30-7pm Tuesday 6 October 2026
Good Trouble confronts what can happen when disruption becomes a creative act and a force for good – when artists lean into friction, discomfort, or defiance and let it spark transformation. Across painting, sculpture, fashion, ceramics, graphic design, moving image and textile works, eleven artists take up the call to “make good trouble”: some stirring gently; others shaking hard.
Their works confront toxic environments and the systems that keep us barely afloat; embrace the unruly or elemental parts of the self; and flip adversity into agency. Others take aim at purity rhetoric and the ideologies that police women’s bodies; push back against the noise of consumer culture with quiet, deliberate alternatives; or introduce a sense of mischief, as domestic scenes sit on the verge of tipping into chaos.
Together, these artists provoke, unsettle, and reimagine. Their works insist that trouble – when wielded with intention – can confront what is harmful and shift what is stagnant.
Artists include: C J Maglaqui, Gail Batchelor, Hamish Southcott, Jess Hall, John Clare, Katja Collins, Nina Cook, Rebecca McNab, Rose Pegman, Ruby McDermott, Verity Scarlett.
Hours: Wed-Thu: 11am-5pm | Fri-Sat: 10am-5pm
Eastside Gallery, Village Arts Centre, 388 Worcester St, Christchurch
Ruby McDermott Silent Tyrant
Ruby McDermott, "Silent Tyrant," acrylic on board, 2025
From Duality-Nina Cook-Oil on board-370x300mm
Nina Cook, "From Duality," oil on board, 2026
Making Lemonade-Nina Cook-Oil on canvas-1200x900mm
Nina Cook, “Making Lemonade,” oil on canvas, 2026
Path of Magic
Katja Collins, "The Path of Magic," oil over acrylic on canvas, 2026
Crude-habit-small2
Hamish Southcott, "Linocut on paper," 2026
8965
John Clare, "A working class hero is something to be," hypodermic needles and acrylic on canvas, 2024