Lotte Kellaway: Pātaka Registrar & kaitiaki of the art
7 Jun 2024
As a child, Lotte Kellaway loved making boxes, and she still does. It’s a small part of her role as care-taker for the Pātaka Collection and the many artworks that travel to and from Pātaka each year for our exhibition programme.
Paperwork and white gloves? What’s involved in caring for the artworks …
There is a lot of paperwork – between Pātaka and other institutions and between us and the private collectors who lend their artworks for our exhibitions – but there’s also a lot of relationship-building. It’s important to ensure there’s a solid base of trust; essential for lending something as precious as an artwork.
I ensure the artworks arrive safely from the private or institutional lenders, are stored safely while they’re at Pātaka, are exhibited safely in our galleries and are safely returned to where they came from. There’s freight, insurance, packaging – a lot of logistics.
I’m also responsible for the condition reports across all the movement of the artworks to and from Pātaka and during the installation process.
Should any damage occur during any of the stages in an artwork’s journey, which I certainly hope it doesn’t, there’s also paperwork for that. I definitely wear gloves when handling the art.
I'm currently working on our new season of exhibitions, including handling the artworks that have travelled to New Zealand for Red Wave Blue Wave, which opens on the 22nd June.
The artworks are travelling but so are you …
I get to travel all over New Zealand to collect and return art. It’s particularly lovely to meet private collectors and view their art collections.
Some Pātaka exhibitions also tour to other galleries and museums. Sandy Adsett exhibition’s Toi Koru was my first touring show, which was a bit daunting due to its scale. The exhibition has different iterations depending on the venue it’s being shown at – for Te Manawa, its first destination last year, there were 48 works packed in 14 crates.
Toi Koru was always planned as a touring show, which proved to be particularly great because our own season was interrupted by lockdowns and building works. After Te Manawa, Toi Koru went to Waikato Museum and is currently at Tairawhiti Museum and Art Gallery. It will travel to MTG Hawkes Bay later this year. There are other public galleries pencilled in after that. Sandy Adsett is involved in the planning for every venue, so that’s really helpful.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I really like the hands-on aspects, like making boxes and nesting objects. I’ve also ended up with a lot of skills around installing the artworks, and I enjoy helping with the exhibition installs.
The next push for me in the role is to digitise the Pātaka art collection and get it online with a public interface.
How do I get a job like yours?
I was very lucky to be able to work my way up, and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunities to learn a lot of the aspects of my role on the job.
I originally did a degree in architectural history and, interspersed with travel and having my daughter, I followed that up with a Post Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies. My father is a documentary photographer, particularly of heritage architecture, and my mother worked at Aratoi, so I was always interested in art and collections and had a particular love of making boxes!
I started at Pātaka in a casual role as a gallery assistant with the front-of-house team. I worked my way up to full-time but knew I wanted more, so I asked Reuben (previous director, Reuben Friend) about some professional development. I was lucky to be seconded to assist previous Registrar and Deputy Director, Laureen Sadler. I’ve now been full-time as Registrar for three years.
