What Thrives on These Soils brings together artists whose work examines the agricultural legacies, politics, and economies of Aotearoa New Zealand. Framing the land as both resource and responsibility, the exhibition complicates dominant narratives of growth and prosperity. The works presented probe the realities of labour, cycles of economic rise and decline, and global systems of exchange that shape food and fibre production.


Daegan Wells’ works consider the fraught markets and histories of wool, a fibre once central to the nation’s economy. Component of Made for the Home (Large Rug) (2024), hand-loomed from pet fleece, invites tactile encounters and functions as seating within the exhibition space. It also grounds Wells’ moving-image work in the space. Bush Coat (2020) is a silent video weaving together archival carpet designs from Parliament’s 1996 refurbishment with views of rural Southland, where sheep stations have given way to dairy farming. By placing luxury interiors alongside altered farming landscapes, Wells draws out tensions between nostalgia for natural fibres and their shifting economic value.


Across the exhibition, such works illuminate the experiences of workers and communities shaped by proximity to farming industries, while interrogating settler-colonial perspectives that position the land as a site for individual profit. Rather than celebrating productivity alone, the artists foreground lived histories and collective resilience, gestures that might seed more sustainable and equitable futures.