Australasia’s largest lightwall, The Lightship, is set to launch its 2025-26 season next month on Auckland’s waterfront.

The contemporary art platform will debut a new series commissioned from six emerging and established artists from Aotearoa and Australia.

This year’s season is curated by Simon Bowerbank, director of Whangārei Art Museum. The theme, Thresholds & Crossings, is a meditation on the forces, flows and tensions that shape life at the edge of land and sea.

Projected onto a 110-metre-long, 13-metre-high structure with nearly 8,500 programmable LED lights, The Lightship transforms a functional part of the working port into a striking public art platform.

A light in the dark

Amid cost of living pressures and rising mental health concerns, The Lightship reconnects communities through creativity, offering a powerful public visual experience when art and shared inspiration are needed most, says presenter Port of Auckland.

Julie Wagener, Port of Auckland’s GM communications, government and community relations, says: “The Lightship is a light in the dark – a beacon of creativity and connection in a time when many are feeling the strain.

“As a port based in the heart of the city, we see it as both a privilege and a responsibility to contribute to the Auckland cultural life. The Lightship, as a contemporary art platform, reflects our ongoing commitment to giving back to the place we’re proud to call home – delivering a striking visual experience for Aucklanders and visitors alike, while shining a light on creative talent from both sides of the Tasman.”

The first commissioned artists are Esther Stewart, Jess Johnson & Simon Ward, John Ward Knox and Jack B. Hadley. The final two will be announced in the new year.

Where infrastructure meets art

Launched in 2020, The Lightship is a car-handling facility by day and a large-scale digital canvas by night. Visible from dusk to dawn, each artwork reaches commuters, ferry passengers, visitors and waterfront pedestrians – creating a powerful intersection of infrastructure and art.

Wagener says: “The Lightship was purpose-built with this vision in mind. It provides both emerging and established artists with a rare opportunity to create large-scale, site-specific works that engage with Auckland’s urban landscape and the harbour it overlooks. It is our gift to the city.”

Simon Bowerbank, curator of The Lightship, says: “We see the port not just as a place of trade, but as a threshold, a site shaped by movement, structure and global flow.

“For the artists in this programme, it becomes a framework to play with and push against, using its systems, rhythms and forms as a way to reimagine how we inhabit space, and how meaning moves through it.

“The artists selected this year represent a dynamic cross-section of perspectives from both sides of the Tasman. Working across painting, sculpture, digital animation and installation Each artist approaches their medium with a strong conceptual focus, whether exploring constructed environments, imagined worlds, or the language of form itself,” Bowerbank explains.

Connect people and cultures

“The Lightship offers these artists a unique chance to translate their work into a large-scale, outdoor digital space,” Bowerbank adds.

“And for many, this will be their first time working at this kind of scale. Each project can involve months of development – from concept and animation through to technical adaptation for The Lightship’s unique screen format.

“Projects displayed on The Lightship reach thousands of people every day, beyond the walls and demographics of a traditional gallery,” he says.

“The Lightship reflects the port’s evolving role,” says Wagener, “not just as essential infrastructure driving economic growth, but as a civic interface that connects people and cultures.

“This incredible platform is also part of a broader $400m infrastructure investment at the port, including a dedicated cruise terminal within the building. For many international visitors, The Lightship is among their first and last impressions of Auckland, and we hope they leave with lasting memories of the artists who helped shape it.

“We see The Lightship as a space designed not just for today, but to serve the city for decades to come,” Wagener adds.

The Lightship, located on Quay Street at Port of Auckland, launches September 1, 2025 with a new work by Esther Stewart on display until October 26, 2025.