2026 Tohunga Mahi Toi 2026 Artist in Residence

Learn about what our Artist in Residence for 2026 will work on during her residency.

Artist in Residence 2026: Nour Hassan

Animating our park

Nour Hassan is our Artist in Residence for 2026. She will live and work at Scandrett Regional Park for eight weeks.

Nour is a multi-media artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She has exhibited her work across New Zealand and internationally and spent much of her childhood exploring Auckland's bays and beaches.

She works across a range of media, with drawings as her main focus. Her landscapes are atmospheric and her portraits are poignant. Her recent images of farm and small-town life are particularly striking.

The 2026 residency site, Scandrett Regional Park, has historic buildings and heritage sites that reflect earlier settlement and use.

Nour has chosen not to focus on the past but instead to look to the future. She will focus on the park's natural features and use hand-drawn stop-motion animation to imagine how visitors may interact with these sites in the future.

Her process will begin with traditional drawings using materials like paper, pencil, ink, charcoal and paint. It will then evolve into digital animations.

A key part of Nour’s approach is spending time on the whenua (land), listening and learning from people with deep connections to this place. She hopes to engage with mana whenua as kaitiaki (guardians), alongside park rangers, volunteers and the local community. This will help her understand the stories, histories and perspectives that shape the regional park. These insights will help inform and guide her animation work.

The residency will conclude with an animation workshop for the local community. It will also include an exhibition where Nour will share her creative process and completed works.