The Physics Room is a contemporary art gallery in the Registry Building at 301 Montreal Street, in the heart of Christchurch Central City. It runs a rolling programme of exhibitions that changes roughly every month or two, presenting new work by artists from Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas.
The programme spans an unusually wide range of contemporary practice — solo shows and curated group exhibitions, moving image commissions, temporary public artworks and offsite projects staged beyond the gallery walls. Māori and Pacific artists feature prominently, from Te Hā and the Veiqia Project exhibition to Kaitani, curated by Ema Tavola.
The gallery has deep roots in the city: in 2017 it celebrated two decades of its programme with Dossier, an archival exhibition, and its website keeps a year-by-year record of shows stretching back well over a decade. Collaborations with organisations such as Te Tuhi, the Eastern Southland Gallery and the Goethe-Institut extend its reach further.
Each December the gallery holds its annual fundraiser — Star Walker in 2025 — and visitors will usually find something current on the walls, with Ashleigh Taupaki and Tristen Harwood's Gun, Paper, Obelisk the present show. Check the exhibitions page for what is on now.
The Physics Room sits in the Registry Building at 301 Montreal Street, in the middle of Christchurch Central City. It is a contemporary art gallery with a simple premise: a rolling programme of new exhibitions, changing every month or two, built around artists working today in Aotearoa New Zealand and further afield.
Right now the gallery is showing Gun, Paper, Obelisk, a two-person exhibition by Ashleigh Taupaki and Tristen Harwood, on from 14 August to 04 October. It follows Desert Rose by Tyne Gordon, B42040A1A1A by Luke Willis Thompson and Another School by Lee Richardson earlier in the year. That rhythm — one focused show at a time, then a turnover — defines a visit here. What you see depends on when you walk in, which is precisely the appeal.
The Physics Room is no newcomer to Ōtautahi Christchurch. In 2017 it staged Dossier, a working archival exhibition celebrating two decades of the gallery — roots that stretch back to the 1990s. The exhibition archive on its website runs year by year, and reads like a map of contemporary art in this country: early-career debuts sit alongside shows by artists such as Fiona Pardington, Lisa Reihana and Shannon Te Ao.
Many exhibitions are solo presentations that give a single artist room to unfold — Hannah Beehre's Westerlund 2, Ana Iti's I am a salt lake, Etanah Lalau-Talapa's Off the mark(ings). Others are carefully built group shows, like the (Un)conditional series that ran through 2018, or Like water by water, which gathered Carol Anne Bauer, Dilohana Lekamge, Fiona Pardington and Suji Park in 2023. The formats shift too, from Martin Awa Clarke Langdon's Room to breathe: Ka tau hā te mauri to works like Pro-Form: The Performance of Running in Place and Turumeke Harrington's Hey māmā, come play with me — a programme that resists a single formula.
The range of media is equally broad. Homing Instinct (2024) brought together moving image commissions by artists including Ananta Thitanat, Ari Angkasa and Dieneke Jansen. Melissa Macleod's Salt of the Earth (2017) was a temporary public artwork. Games and Politics (2018) was an interactive exhibition presented with the Goethe-Institut and ZKM Center for Art and Media. In 2020 the gallery added Open Online, carrying its programme onto the web.
Māori and Pacific artists are a constant thread: Te Hā in 2023, iLakolako ni weniqia: A Veiqia Project exhibition in 2021, Kaitani curated by Ema Tavola in 2017, and, in 2025, Ngamako Rota's Te oorokohanga mai o te tangi o te mooteatea.
Not everything happens at 301 Montreal Street. The gallery runs offsite projects: 2025's OFFSITE: IN/DIGITAL SPACES presented Bea Gladding, Janaye Henry, Nicholas Ahu Gartner and protectionspell, while 2024's OFFSITE: A fire that blackened the rocks featured Conor Clarke, Eleanor Cooper and Kate Te Ao. Partnerships stretch the programme further — Share / Cheat / Unite (2017) was developed in conversation with Te Tuhi, Timely Additions (2019) was a partnership with the Eastern Southland Gallery, and in 2018 part of the (Un)conditional series appeared at the Melbourne Art Fair.
Because the programme rotates so regularly, the most useful habit is to check physicsroom.org.nz before setting out: the site lists what is on now, what is coming next, and a deep archive of past exhibitions. The Registry Building location puts the gallery in the heart of the central city, easy to fold into a walk around Christchurch's centre.
The standout date beyond the ordinary programme is the annual fundraiser, held each December. The 2025 edition, Star Walker, is supported by Fraser Flynn and runs from 05 to 12 December — a one-off show that backs the gallery's year-round work.
For anyone building a picture of Christchurch's art scene, or hoping to encounter tomorrow's established artists early, The Physics Room is one of the most reliable rooms in the city: focused, frequently refreshed, and unafraid of work that asks questions.