A historic toilet in Palmerston North provides both artistic inspiration, modern interpretation, and an inaugural accolade for artist Emily Hartley-Skudder.
CAMEO, an exhibition by Emily Hartley-Skudder, the recipient of New Zealand’s most significant new art prize has opened at Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and Heritage in Palmerston North.
Emily is the inaugural recipient of the $40,000 Fair Trust Art Prize, which will be awarded annually by the Eileen Fair Charitable Trust.
CAMEO is Emily’s response to Ladies Rest, Palmerston North’s historic Art Deco public toilets in Te Marae o Hine, the Square. It transforms the historic building into the inspiration for a contemporary exploration of gender, identity, architecture, and public space. Humour and desire are reflected in Emily’s subtly subversive, hyper-realistic paintings as well as elements of feminism, identity, and control in her ‘artificial ordinary’ retro bathroom installations.
“The prize has allowed me to do a deep dive into research around the historic Ladies Rest, and the establishment of similar women’s restrooms throughout Aotearoa in the 1930s,” Emily explains.
“Public bathrooms are inescapably political. Most significantly, they are about access — who gets to participate in public life and who doesn’t,” she says.
Te Manawa senior manager curatorial and collections, Sian van Dyk, who recommended Emily as inaugural Fair Trust Art Prize recipient, says the exhibition brings something unique to Manawatū.
“Emily’s work is accessible — and even a bit cheeky — while also being critically engaged. Many visitors will have their own memories of, and experiences with, Ladies Rest and it’s our hope this nostalgia and familiarity will draw them in to consider Emily’s response to it alongside the universal themes she explores.”
From mid-October until July 2027, as part of the Design Festival of Aotearoa, Emily’s exhibition will extend into Ladies Rest itself — open to the public during the facility’s opening house. In June this year, Ladies Rest was officially given a Category 2 Historic Place heritage listing by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga in recognition of the significant cultural and architectural value of the 1936 Art Deco building.
