NGAHERE 5-20 Sep 2025

The moment you cross the threshold, the city falls away. Light softens. The air shifts. You are in a world inspired by nature, by Ngahere: Aotearoa’s native forest.

Within the gallery, collections from LyZadie design studio mix with the extended portfolios of their makers. This is a space to uplift and explore the richness of the teams that bring LyZadie Design Studio work to life. A place to celebrate creativity. A place to remember the feeling of the ground, ancient beneath our feet. Here, art and nature breathe together.

"You enter and discover vessels from the SLEEVE Collection rising from the earth like living forms. Designed by Michelle Huizinga with Lyzadie, their shapes echo the protective folds of a sleeve, the graceful curve of the Nīkau palm. You pause, tracing their raw edges, feeling their weight, their fragility, their resilience, and explore the other work from Michelle’s clay studio. A few steps on, stone holds stories older than memory. Pieces from the DANCE OF GEOMETRY stand like anchors in the room, each stroke of the chisel a heartbeat of the whenua.

Close by, more carvings from Amie Redpath sit solid and firm, rooted in the earth they spring from. Nearby, the shimmer of feathers catches the light. Lyzadie’s TUI collection is a firm fan favourite and here the flight of the tūī weaves through the space from furniture to jewellery. Maker Ronja Schipper showcases her feather work in earrings, necklaces and more. 
We keep moving through the space. Past images of trees, to find poetry scrolls by Michele Powles unfurling in long streams. They encourage you to stop, read, consider, dream. Words flow down paper, and light catches the path you have already travelled.
Until, in the centre, the PONGA Collection from LyZadie Design Studio commands the room. Ponga trunks, carved by Herb Betham in collaboration with Bespoke Furniture Design, rise as kaitiaki, guardians who watch, protect, and connect you to the ancestors. They are still, but their presence is felt like a low, steady drum.
You walk slowly. Time loosens. Every piece invites you closer, asks you to listen. In the ngahere, nothing hurries, somewhere, just beyond hearing, the forest whispers."