Always Song in the Water is an evocative exhibition at the New Zealand Maritime Museum that explores the oceanic imagination linking Aotearoa New Zealand, the islands of the Pacific, and Japan. Inspired by Gregory O’Brien’s book of the same name, the exhibition invites visitors to embark on a poetic voyage — beginning in Northland and drifting outward into the wide Pacific. Through art, sound, and text, it celebrates the enduring relationships between land, sea, and people across Moana Oceania.

The exhibition design reflects O’Brien’s lyrical narrative approach, where a metaphorical dinghy becomes the vessel for discovery. The gallery unfolds as a journey of encounters — with artists, writers, and places — that mirror the book’s reflections on travel, kinship, and the natural world. Visitors are encouraged to pause, listen, and contemplate their own connections to the ocean, which both separates and unites the peoples of the Pacific.

The Letter Q provided exhibition graphic design services for this project, working in close collaboration with the museum’s curatorial and exhibition teams and with O’Brien. This partnership was highly collaborative, ensuring that visual communication and narrative tone were seamlessly aligned. Typography, colour, and layout choices were carefully tuned to reflect the lyrical and reflective spirit of the content, allowing the words and imagery to resonate in concert.

The result is a cohesive and immersive visitor experience that embodies the project’s spirit of shared exploration. Always Song in the Water stands as a testament to the value of creative collaboration — between museum, artist, and designer — in giving shape to an exhibition that feels both intimate and expansive, deeply rooted in Aotearoa yet open to the horizon.

Always Song on the Water was been awarded Resene Colour Maestro Award for Installation and Experiential.