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Curator, Natasha Conland discusses the 4th Auckland Triennial

Curator Natasha Conland firmly established her international reputation as curator of the New Zealand pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale where she curated et al.'s the fundamental practice with commissioner Gregory Burke now director of the Powerplant, Toronto.

In 2006, Conland was also invited by the artistic director of the Busan Biennale, Manu Park, to co-curate the CAFÉ 2 project for the Busan Biennale in South Korea with nine young international curators. Also in 2006, she curated the 2006 SCAPE Biennial of Art and Public Space in Christchurch, New Zealand with German curator Susanne Jaschko, where she developed the theme 'don't misbehave!'. That year the curatorial team initiated a media launch at the inaugural Singapore Biennale.

Conland curated the international group show Mystic Truths for the Auckland Art Gallery in 2007 and was one of ten young international curators from Asia, the US and Europe invited to FIAC in Paris later that year.

In 2008 she was one of twelve international "curatorial comrades" appointed to the Biennale of Sydney by artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.

Conland writes for a number of contemporary arts journals and catalogues in the Asia Pacific region and co-edits Reading Room, a journal of contemporary art published annually by the E.H. McCormick Research Library, Auckland Art Gallery. As well as other international speaking invitations, she has received curatorial research grants from both the Mondriaan Foundation and the Danish Arts Council.

Conland has been curator of contemporary art at Auckland Art Gallery since 2006. Prior to this she was the curator contemporary art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa where she curated the exhibition Judy Darragh: So ... you made it? a revision of the retrospective format as artist project. During her time at the Museum of New Zealand she was involved in conceptualising a new framework for site-specific sculpture commissions, and curated an exhibition that generated discussion around the character and nature of this highly politicised collection.