Artist Jo Torr will discuss the ideas and research behind her installation *Self Portrait: The Shape of a Lineage* at Christchurch Art Gallery on Thursday evening.

Torr’s work explores the histories that shape identity through textiles, costume and material culture. Her latest installation brings together nine interconnected gowns spanning eight generations of her family, using vintage domestic textiles to consider ancestry, memory and the lives of women whose identities were often recorded through marriage.

The talk follows the path of Torr’s practice from earlier work about exchanges between European and Polynesian peoples to the more personal family history that informs *Self Portrait*. The artist’s work sits at the meeting point of sculpture, clothing and artefact, an approach shaped in part by her museum background.

Torr is an award-winning New Zealand artist whose work is held in public collections including Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, The Dowse Art Museum and Canterbury Museum. She is currently Collection Curator at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History.

The event gives Christchurch audiences an opportunity to hear directly from the creator about an installation that uses textile work to make family history visible. It is being held in the Philip Carter Family Auditorium at Christchurch Art Gallery.