Project

On Civicness and participating in public life through art practice

Panel discussion in Berlin

On 2 October 2021, Contemporary HUM continues its series of panel discussions, this time focusing on Aotearoa’s large artist contingent in Berlin, and throughout Europe. 

This conversation explored the idea of ‘civicness’ and how it is tied to social responsibility within a global community, taken from the perspective of three artists from Aotearoa who are actively taking part in public life through their practice. What does collective work or cooperation with others allow in contrast to an individual practice, and is authorship important in a collaborative project? What does a site-specific response look like when working in situ within vastly different contexts, from art institutions and public theatres to the NFT market? Is there a relation to be traced between civicness and social change and what tools can be used when attempting to rethink power relations? 

Guest speakers include Glasgow-based Cat Auburn; Berlin-based Ruth Buchanan; and Warsaw-based Daniel Malone. HUM’s Editor Pauline Autet moderated the discussion.

Project

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series

Partnership

A collaboration between In*ter*is*land Collective and Contemporary HUM consisting of four edited online talanoa (conversations) between several tagata Moana (Māori and Pasifika people) across the globe which centre around the principles of talanoa; ofa, mafana, malie and faka'apa'apa (love, warmth, humour and respect) and the ability to have a "reciprocal knowledge exchange".

The talanoa within this series will focus on topics such as life in the diaspora, moana futurism, queer identities, and ReMoanafication, and all will be individually responded to in written form by Anne-Marie Te Whiu (Te Rarawa), reminding us of our intricate connection and shared ancestry in Te Moananui-a-Kiwa.

Project

Kunst Kopfüber / Art Upside Down

Partnership

The Goethe-Institut New Zealand and Contemporary HUM present a series of portraits about New Zealand artists who have found a new physical - and artistic - home in Germany. Kunst Kopfüber / Art Upside Down invites six international writers and curators to look at the practice of six contemporary artists from Aotearoa working across a variety of mediums, from video art to painting; large-scale installation to poetry. The written portraits about contemporary painter Sam Rountree Williams and poet Hinemoana Baker kick off this collaborative series.  

Calendar

Ilke Gers, in Border Buda

27 October 2023 —
27 October 2026

various locations in Brussels, Vilvoorde and Machelen, Belgium

Calendar

Lisa Reihana and Yuki Kihara, sis Pacific Art 1980-2023

26 August 2023 —
08 September 2024

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

Writing

Feeling, pressed

By Ash Kilmartin

18.08.2023

Zooming-in to personal memory and bodily encounter, Rotterdam-based artist Ash Kilmartin writes on the work of Alexis Hunter (1948–2014) in An Emergency Exit Sealed Shut at Kunstverein, Amsterdam.

Writing

Ngā Huarere o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa: Pacific Weathers

By Melody Nixon

01.08.2023

US- and Aotearoa-based writer Melody Nixon responds to digital artworks in Te Moana Nui a Kiwa; a weather station in the World Weather Network project featuring works by over twenty artists from Aotearoa and Oceania. One of twenty-eight stations in the project, the station featured online artworks by Kalisolaite ‘Uhila, Denise Batchelor and Maureen Lander, The Breath of Weather Collective, and a collaboration between Janine Randerson, Ron Bull, Rachel Shearer, Stefan Marks and glaciologist Heather Purdie. Nixon discusses how a selection of these works may reorient our approaches to the climate crisis. 

Writing

Semantics of a City

By María Inés Plaza Lazo

26.06.2023

In May, publisher María Inés Plaza Lazo visited Ruth Buchanan’s A garden with bridges (spine, stomach, throat, ear), a walk-in sculpture and the result of a multi-part collaboration with the New Patrons that brings the synapses between all elements of Mönchengladbach, Germany, to new impulses.

Writing

soft and weak like water

By Amy Weng

13.06.2023

Reporting from a visit to South Korea, curator Amy Weng writes about how works by Yuki Kihara and Mataaho Collective connect the ambitious themes and ideas of the 14th Gwangju Biennale to specific histories from their homes in Aotearoa New Zealand and Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. 

Writing

Off Season by Richard Frater

By Henry Babbage

29.05.2023

Off Season by Richard Frater at the Kunstverein München sparked reflections, for writer Henry Babbage, on our asymmetrical relations with the avian life that shares our cities. 

Writing

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series 2.3

By Ioana Gordon-Smith, Michel Mulipola, Skawennati, Solomon Enos

07.06.2023

Our third episode in this new talanoa series, produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, sees Michel Mulipola, Skawennati and Solomon Enos discuss the importance of shapeshifting, imagination and innovation in Indigenous storytelling, as well as in their respective practices. Written response by Aotearoa writer and curator Ioana Gordon-Smith.

Writing

The Octopus Against a Sharp White Background

By Amit Noy

14.05.2023

Writer and choreographer Amit Noy reviews Atamira Dance Company’s performance of Te Wheke in the Lenape territory of New York City, and finds a work enlivened by indelible performances and critical Indigenous inquiry.

Calendar

Martin Patrick, book release, The Performing Observer: Essays on Contemporary Art, Performance, and Photography

01 March 2023 —
01 March 2028

online and from selected global stockists

Writing

Thinking Historically in the Present

By Megan Tamati-Quennell

17.04.2023

Having attended the opening week of Sharjah Biennial 15, Megan Tamati-Quennell writes about the work of Aotearoa artists Robyn Kahukiwa and Kahurangiariki Smith, included in this large-scale exhibition in the United Arab Emirates, and how Hoor Al Qasimi has carried the curatorial mantle from Okwui Enwezor to create an exhibition that both celebrates the late curator’s legacy and the diversity, solidarity and strength of non-Western art.

Writing

Rocks on Wheels and Flying Shoes

By Rosemary Forde

28.03.2023

Curator Rosemary Forde explores the art-historical and civic context in which artist Mike Hewson’s recent public playground in Naarm Melbourne, Rocks on Wheels, has landed. 

Writing

“Sorry … Ummm”: Mystery, Mark Fisher, and Laughter

By Jasmine Gallagher

06.03.2023

Artist Campbell Patterson discusses his recent residencies, delayed by over two years due to the pandemic, at Headlands, Sausalito, and Gasworks, London, with friend and poet Jasmine Gallagher. They share their reflections on institutions of art and medicine, and on carving out their own spaces for the process of creation. 

Writing

To Move Across a Window

By Francisco González Castro

31.01.2023

Texas-based artist and writer Francisco González Castro was first introduced to the many-armed project Beberemos El Vino Nuevo, Juntos! / Let Us Drink the New Wine, Together!, co-created by artist and educator alys longley and featuring no less than 19 Aotearoa contributors, just as the pandemic was escalating internationally. Here, he considers the lessons it presented to audiences in Santiago in the summer of 2022, just as the distance that defined the collaborators’ interactions was once again traversable.

Writing

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series 2.2

By Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Grace Iwashita-Taylor, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Lana Lopesi

12.12.2022

Our second episode in this four-part talanoa series, produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, sees Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Grace Iwashita-Taylor and Lana Lopesi discuss their recent writing initiatives, each focused on fostering the conditions that allow Indigenous writing to flourish. Written response by Aotearoa writer and curator Ioana Gordon-Smith.

Writing

A Place You Didn’t Know That You Didn’t Know About

By Chloe Lane

06.12.2022

Chloe Lane speaks to Aotearoa artist Imogen Taylor on finishing their six-month residency at The International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City, discussing Taylor's newest body of work, what it's like to be a contemporary artist from Aotearoa in New York City, and what living with a ball python can teach you about fear.