Ghost Hiikoi 2, a new installation by Tāmaki based artist ilish thomas, is a wandering investigation, a loving portrait of a friend who resides in the other world, a testament to the hazy experience of dreaming and the interplay of grief and love between the physical, spiritual and digital.
Upcoming Exhibition
Hātarei 20 Hune -
Hātarei 1 Ākuhata
Saturday 20 June -
Saturday 1 August
2026
Still from Ghost Hiikoi 2 (2026), ilish thomas.
Collaboration is not always the easiest path to follow, it requires a level of patience, care and honesty that can be hard to achieve between people, but in Ghost Hiikoi 2, ilish has worked with Angus Tahere-Hayes. Angus went home to their tupuna in mid 2022 but left (as we probably all will) an archive of photos and video on their social media.
ilish, working in collaboration with this archive, has built a portal where the audience is invited to move through time and space with them. As the audio-visual progresses, Angus’ retelling of ghost stories in the city surrounding Blue Oyster, dip and dive and are interjected with audio of ilish laughing and responding. The interaction between these two friends literally breaks down the barrier between the living and the dead. The limitations of time and space are rendered transparent.
The installation is arranged to induce a dreamlike state. A large day bed is positioned beneath a scrim screen, the video blurred, distorted and echoing after itself. After all, dreaming is a space where the boundaries between worlds collapse and the spirit can journey to where it pleases.
ilish thomas
ilish is an multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores the complexity of the mixed indigi & South Asian diasporic identity through themes of whakapapa, memory, grief, loss, and belonging - both personal and collective. Working across textiles, analogue and digital video, audio, and other archival strategies, they seek to engage modes of storytelling and oral histories as tools for cultural navigation and mediation. Central to her work is a focus on ‘in-betweenness’, and of dreaming new political imaginaries.
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