Emily Hartley Skudder, Piss Factory (2026), oil on linen on aluminium panel. Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington.

Bringing together pristine, still life paintings of cleaning products, she-wees and baby bottles with surreal constructions, Emily Hartley-Skudder’s latest body of work responds to Palmerston North’s beloved public toilets, Ladies Rest, in Te Marae o Hine, the Square.

CAMEO takes its name from the group ‘Community Action by Mothers and Existing Other users’, who protested the planned additions of the information centre and men’s toilets to Ladies Rest in the early 2000s. Many locals will have their own memories of visiting these facilities, and Hartley-Skudder’s work engages its past to explore current ideas about feminism, intersectionality, cleanliness and control.

A place to ‘relieve yourself’ or ‘powder your nose’—on the surface, public bathrooms seem benign and functional. However, their design and relationship to bodily functions and gender also makes them political. 

Shining a light on the everyday conveniences we take for granted, Hartley-Skudder encourages us to consider what a safe space to rest means for everyone, and who gets to participate in public life versus who does not.

Emily Hartley-Skudder is the inaugural recipient of the Fair Trust Art Prize. Awarded annually by the Eileen Fair Charitable Trust, the $40,000 Fair Trust Art Prize enables a mid-career New Zealand artist to create a significant new body of work for public exhibition. The new prize is among the most substantial of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand.