fiona pardington taharaki skyside

Author: Fiona Pardington
Format: Hardcover
Publication date: 9 May 2026
112 pages

Brimming with beauty and loss, the avian portraits of Fiona Pardington (Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Ngati Kahungunu, Clan Cameron of Erracht) resurrect the charisma and wildness of native birds preserved as taxidermy specimens in museum collections around Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.

Ancestral memory is brought to life under Pardington’s gaze. One of Aotearoa’s most powerful contemporary artists, Pardington’s practice captivates audiences with her profound ability to convey the intangible through exquisitely composed photographs.

On these pages, her manu are not merely replicated but reborn.

This new book presents a rich and brilliant selection of texts by Geoffrey Batchen, Maia Nuku (Ngai Tai), Hana O’Regan (Kai Tahu), Harry Rickit (Te Arawa, Ngapuhi), Megan Tamati-Quennell (Te Atiawa, Kati Mamoe, Ngai Tahu) and Andrew Paul Wood alongside Pardington’s exquisite artworks. It explores the practice of an artist at the height of her career and reveals the monumental works she has created for the New Zealand Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale.


Highlights:

– Beautifully designed by the artist’s brother, artist and designer Neil Pardington, including an exquisite colourway representing Aotearoa skies at dawn.

– More than 25 pages of artworks, including never-before-seen photographs created for the Venice Biennale.

– A poetic introduction in English and te reo Maori by Dr Hana O’Regan.

– Maia Nuku (Curator for the Arts of Oceania at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) considers manu in te ao Maori and the histories of bird portraiture.

– Art critic Andrew Paul Wood reveals meaningful connections between Pardington’s works, Dante’s Purgatorio and the Southern Cross.

– Professor Geoffrey Batchen (Oxford University) positions Pardington’s work within the wider international history of photography.

– Art historian Dr Harry Rickit considers metaphors of infinity in Pardington’s practice, connecting Taharaki Skyside to Venice’s scientific and artist past.

– Curator Megan Tamati-Quennell explores the themes and subjects that thread through the history of Pardington’s work, and the artist’s distinct aesthetic and conceptual approach.

– The binding of Taharaki Skyside uses the technique known as Swiss binding, whereby the text block is glued only to the back cover not the spine. This allows the pages to lie flat when opened, fully revealing the artworks within. The exposed stitching has been specially selected by designer Neil Pardington to match the colourway surrounding the images of Fiona Pardington’s manu on the interior pages