Museum exhibit featuring outrigger canoes mounted on supports, with a large abstract artwork hanging on a blue wall in the background.

art gallery & museum curatorial projects

Museum exhibit featuring multiple large illuminated panels with colorful nature-themed artwork, and two visitors observing the display.

international touring exhibitions

A hardcover book with a dark blue cover, featuring an intricate red and light blue geometric pattern on the front. The spine shows the authors' names, 'Sandy Adsett' and 'Toi Koru,' with the publisher's name 'Pataka' at the bottom.

writing & publications

Interior of an art museum with sculptures and framed paintings, including a black and white decorative bowl in the foreground, a seated woman, two people observing artwork, and ornate white columns with a glass ceiling overhead.

governance & leadership

Portrait of a person with a hat and formal attire, rendered with a pixelated, low-resolution effect.

art practice

Black and white portrait of a man in a suit, smiling, with a background of a window showing a body of water and land in the distance.

He uri o te Nehenehe Nui. Ko Pirongia te maunga. Waipā te awa. Ko Ngāti Maniapoto te iwi. I tipu ake au ki Tāmaki Makaurau, ki te rohe o Māngere, te whenua tūturu o Kingi Tawhiao. Kei Pōneke e noho ana au i te wā nei.

Reuben Friend is a Wellington-based Aotearoa New Zealand artist, curator and writer. Friend has curated numerous national and international art projects in Aotearoa New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia and Canada as the Director of Pātaka Art Gallery and Museum in Porirua from 2015-2021, and Curator Māori-Pacific Art at City Gallery Wellington from 2009-2013.

Current roles include Co-Chair of the Indigenous Curatorial Collective based in Toronto, Canada; Committee Member of Te Haerewa Māori Advisory Board for Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery; and Member for the Wellington Sculpture Trust Arts Advisory Committee. Friend has a degree in Māori Visual Arts from Toimairangi School of Māori Visual Arts at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa (2006), and a Masters in Māori Visual Arts from Te Pūtahi a Toi School of Māori Studies at Massey University in Palmerston North (2009).