Pardington was recently made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to photography around the same time as her artwork became part of the permanent collection in the Arts of Oceania Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Arts of Oceania exhibit, overseen by Māori (Ngāi Tai) curator Dr Maia Nuku and curators for the Arts of Oceania at The Met, is part of a significant transformation at the museum, which houses the collections of the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania.
Her work is featured among more than 650 works representing 140 cultures from around Oceania, including Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.
Pardington was excited to attend the official opening night of the reopening of the gallery last month.
"This is kind of a big deal for a person like me.
"I don’t even really have words for how it makes me feel because I’m not even sure. I’m just feeling quite surprised.
"A big black tie dinner and all these super-famous people and I’m going, ‘oh my God’."
Pardington was among seven invited Māori and Pasifika artists to attend the reopening supported by Creative New Zealand.
Before the opening night she received another surprise.
"You never really imagine you’re going to be sitting in New York and attending something like this and then to receive an email saying you’re in the New York Times today.
"I mean, it’s just a little mention, but it’s awesome," she said.
Earlier this year, the South Canterbury-based artist, a photographer of Maori (Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngati Kahungunu) and Scottish (Clan Cameron of Erracht) descent, was also selected to represent New Zealand at the Venice Biennale next year.
She said New Zealand was "a tiny little place full of very powerful creativity" and to be selected for the biennale was a "great honour".
" I am really going to do my best to uphold the honour that has been bestowed upon me."
Pardington recently announced the name of her exhibition, "Taharaki Skyside".
She said her work built on the content of her 2024 series Te taha o te rangi, "the edge of the heavens", which consists of photographs of Aotearoa New Zealand birds preserved as taxidermy specimens in museum collections.
Pardington is known for her investigation of traditional and forgotten objects in her still-life photography and her focus on taonga, such as the hei tiki and the extinct huia.
She said her relationship with birds was "very personal".
"Birds can symbolise familial love, romantic attachment, ecological warnings — they can be intimations of mortality — and in my work they can also represent individual people in my life," Pardington said.
In 2011, Pardington became a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate, and in 2016 was named a Knight (Chevalier) in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French prime minister, the first New Zealand visual artist to receive this honour.
Since 2017, Pardington has represented New Zealand at the London Art Fair and Art Basel Hong Kong, participated in the 2018 major international exhibition "Oceania" at London’s Royal Academy of the Arts, and was the first New Zealander invited to participate in the Sharjah Biennial 16 in the United Arab Emirates in 2024.
Despite all her career successes she remains grounded and says persistence is key.
"You really don’t want to get a big head and start thinking that you’re special, because everybody’s got talents.
"And people that work hard and persevere and push through — if you want to do something, you just stick to your guns and keep going."
