Auckland University of Technology

Faculty Member, School of Art and Design - Postgraduate Studies

Associate Professor, Spatial Design

About

Born in Germany, Tina first came to Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1982 and has since spent extended periods in both countries. A design practitioner since 1978, she entered academia in 1993 and completed her PhD thesis Myth, Symbol, Ornament: the Loss of Meaning in Transition at The University of Auckland in 2000.

As Associate Professor in Spatial Design, Tina continues to explore the pitfalls and potentials of cross-cultural research in the areas of architecture and design in Aotearoa, the Pacific, and Europe. Apart from teaching Spatial Design Studio, she is mainly involved in the supervision of Masters and PhD theses in the areas of art, architecture, design, performance and education. Since 2007, Tina has co-ordinated the PhD/MPhil programmes at the School of Art and Design, a task she now shares with Dr. Welby Ings. This involvement gave rise to an interest in the theoretical underpinnings of practice-led PhD research, and in particular how writing can generate ideas and provide continuity and consistency. From 2010, Tina leads the new Spatial Design postgraduate research cluster Maaori and Oceanic Space.

Tina is executive editor, with Dr. Ross Jenner, of Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts and a member of the steering committee for the annual symposiumInterstices Under Construction, organised jointly by AUT University and The University of Auckland. She intermittently works on a book Trading Images: Culture as Resource and Practice and conducts research with Albert L. Refiti into the role of traditional indigenous art and architecture in the globalised leisure industries. Past and present global movements of Pacific houses are the focus of a new research project with Robert Jahnke, Albert Refiti, Keri Wikitera and Moana Nepia. It seeks to establish the roles played by a selection of Maaori wharenui and Samoan fale, on display overseas, in the performance of Pacific identities. This is important to clarify conceptually the increasingly critical issues arising from the growing global commodification of indigenous cultures. The research has a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspective and will foster new forms of intercultural/international research collaboration.

Prior to taking up lecturing, Tina worked for sixteen years as a designer across a variety of fields in Europe and New Zealand. Former employers include the Deutscher Werkbund (German Werkbund, an esteemed German design institution, whose founding members in 1907 included Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and Josef Olbrich) and the Messe Frankfurt Gmbh (one of the major global organisers of trade fairs and exhibitions). Tina previously lectured at Unitec, Auckland, and has given presentations at tertiary institutions and conferences in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Denmark and Germany.

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