LAST SEEN: Protest Banner Portraits of the Escapee Menagerie

LAST SEEN: Protest Banner Portraits of the Escapee Menagerie

Space Gallery, Whanganui | 29 April - 16 May 2026

Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Rose Lee opens her first solo exhibition at Space Gallery in Whanganui this April, bringing together a series of hand stitched textile protest banners depicting patchwork portraits of zoo animal escapees, constructed from abandoned fast fashion garments and reclaimed materials. 

Last Seen stitches together feminist textile history, global fashion critique and contemporary activist making. The works take as their starting point an unlikely patriarchal archive; media stories of animal escapes, which reveal a consistent and telling pattern of gendered anthropomorphic reportage. Male escapees are described as curious, intelligent and benevolent, while female escapees are feisty, nasty and a handful. 

The banners are stitched from the very garments that embody another story of gendered exploitation and this deliberate use of fast fashion is central to the artworks message. These reclaimed garments, sourced from op shops around the country, carry global stories of extraction and labour. Fashioned from polyester derived from fossil fuels, sewn predominantly by women in precarious conditions and circulated through complex and polluting trade routes, once they are transformed into protest banners, they become a critique of interconnected ecological, economic and patriarchal systems.

Last Seen draws on a lineage of feminist banner making, from suffrage movements to contemporary textile activist traditions, and asks what freedom and captivity look like now within the polycrisis and enduring structures of patriarchal power. 

Exhibition Dates: 29 April - 16 May 2026

Venue: Space Gallery, 18 Saint Hill Street, Whanganui

Opening Event: Wednesday 29th April, 5.30 - 7pm (all welcome)