The publication based on Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art won the supreme Gerard Reid Best Book Award at New Zealand’s 2023 PANZ Book Design Awards.
The book documented the landmark exhibition presented at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2020 and 2021.
More than 200 works carried from gallery to page
Edited by curator Nigel Borell, the publication included more than 200 artworks by 110 Māori artists.
Tyrone Ohia developed the design, with layout by Katrina Duncan.
The judges praised its strong, clear and contemporary visual identity and its ability to avoid short-lived design trends.
The book also received awards for best illustrated book and best typography.
Design extending the exhibition’s historical argument
The original exhibition traced contemporary Māori art from the 1950s to the present.
It had already been recognised for changing the way New Zealand’s art history was narrated and for placing Māori artists within a connected, artist-led account rather than as an isolated category.
The publication carried that argument beyond the temporary exhibition.
Page structure, typography, image sequence and scale became curatorial tools for preserving relationships among works that had once occupied physical galleries.
Borell had received the inaugural He Momo, A Moment in Time Award for curating the exhibition.
The 2023 design awards also recognised several other books grounded in te ao Māori, including publications written or translated in te reo Māori.
Toi Tū Toi Ora demonstrated that an exhibition catalogue can become an independent cultural object.
Its design did not merely record the show. It created a durable form through which more than 70 years of Māori artistic practice could continue to be studied, seen and shared.