Pātaka launches Jasmine Togo-Brisby book alongside its exhibition
21 May 2025, Rachel Healy
This article first appeared in The Post on 21 May 2025
This article first appeared in The Post on 21 May 2025
So many decisions and details go into planning an exhibition in a public gallery, all undertaken by a small, specialist team juggling multiple tasks. Add in publishing a book, and things get busy indeed. Coming up in July at Pātaka Art+Museum is a large-scale exhibition by Australian South Sea Islands artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby, ungeographic, curated by Ioana Gordon-Smith, who has also edited and contributed to the associated book of the same name. Rachel Healy asked Ioana about bringing the book to life.
IGS: Absolutely. Jasmine’s works are hugely informed by wanting to make space for South Sea Islanders: while they’re deeply connected to different contexts and discourses, they’re still largely unknown across them all. The book is one way to give space to South Sea histories, while also stitching together their various archives, histories, and influences, which all inform Jasmine’s work.
An artist book also feels appropriate and timely for a mid-career survey exhibition. We wanted to make something with a longevity beyond the run of the exhibition, that could move through the world in a way that only books can. The book was also the hook to convince Jasmine to have an exhibition at Pātaka!
IGS: We’ve deliberately included writers who know Jasmine’s work well and perspectives that are significant to her art practice. In a sense, these writers are already a type of record of Jasmine’s career to date. As well as Jasmine’s contribution, her sister and studio manager, Simone Togo-Brisby, and Imelda Miller, the Curator of Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Indigenous Studies at Queensland Museum, provide South Sea perspectives in the book.
Anna Arabindan-Kesson from Princeton University speaks to the connections between the Pacific slave trade and the earlier, transatlantic slave trade. Ruth McDougall from Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art brings knowledge of Jasmine’s work and an Australian perspective on the history of plantation work in Queensland. Nina Tonga, currently working at the University of Hawai‘i, has known Jasmine and her work for a long time over the course of working in Aotearoa.
RH: Why did you choose to work with designers Extended Whānau?
IGS: Because they’re the best! Their publications are stellar and award-winning: they’re behind lots of recent great art books, including Auckland Art Gallery’s Toi Tū Te Ora. As a Māori-led design studio, who are also behind the ‘Together For Te Tiriti’ design, they bring a particular sympathy to Indigenous art, Indigenous concerns and the process of working with Indigenous artists. In short, they bring a lot to the table. Jasmine probably put it best when she said she can’t imagine having worked with anyone else on the book. I already knew they were great to work with from collaborating on the catalogue for Maioha Kara’s exhibition, In Good Relation, at Pātaka last year and Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art, which I co-edit with Lana Lopesi.
IGS: Just under a year so far, at all times of the day and night. It's maybe taking even longer than other publications because Jasmine’s works carry so much weight—we need to do her practice justice—but there’s also an awareness that for some readers, this book might be one of the first introductions about the Pacific slave trade and South Sea Islanders. So we want to get it right.
Pātaka is offering the opportunity to purchase a limited edition Jasmine Togo-Brisby print, with all proceeds going toward funding this beautiful book. Visit the Pātaka Foundation website to find out more.
