Join us for an opening weekend Coffee & Croissants kōrero to welcome in Endgrained with designer Martino Gamper and Objectspace director Kim Paton.

The pair will discuss Gamper’s approach to design and making, and how he has reimagined Objectspace as a social space for encounter and interaction through the new body of furniture in Endgrained. They will share insights into the new timber Gamper has developed for this body of work, and the timber histories research project that accompanies it – titled Wood from the trees and conceived in collaboration with Objectspace and Practise.

Following this kōrero, we’ll walk up the road to Michael Lett at 312 Karangahape Road to celebrate the opening of Gamper’s exhibition there.

Get your $10 ticket to attend this morning talk with a coffee & croissant in hand. 

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Martino Gamper OBE (b. 1971, Merano, Italy) lives and works in London. Starting as an apprentice with a furniture maker in Merano, Gamper went on to study sculpture under Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. He completed a master’s in 2000 from the Royal College of Art, London, where he studied under Ron Arad. Working across design and art venues, Martino Gamper engages in a variety of projects including exhibition design, interior design, one-off commissions and the design of mass-produced products for the cutting edge of the international furniture industry.  Gamper was awarded an OBE in 2023 for services to design. He was the recipient of the Moroso Award for Contemporary Art in 2011, and the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, Furniture Award in 2008 for 100 Chairs in 100 Days. He is represented in Aotearoa New Zealand by Michael Lett.

Kim Paton has been the Director of Objectspace since 2015. Her interest is in interdisciplinary exhibition making across the fields of craft, design, architecture and contemporary art. Paton has curated and written extensively on object-based art forms, including for the Warwick Freeman monograph Hook Hand Heart Star (arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2025). She is the co-editor of the publication The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa (2024), co-authored the book Contemporary Jewellery in Context (arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2017). In 2024 she was awarded the Garvey Cup by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects. 

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Public Programming for Martino Gamper: Endgrained is supported by the British Council New Zealand and the Pacific.  

Coffee & Croissants is a conversation series supported by our friends at Allpress Espresso and Daily Bread.