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Writing
Time and Water
By Maya Wilson-Sanchez
03.09.2020
Presented earlier this year at Oakville Galleries in Canada, Shannon Te Ao's two-channel video and sound installation Ka mua, ka muri recently opened at Remai Modern, Saskatoon. In this part essay, part dialogue, writer Maya Wilson-Sanchez examines Te Ao's new project, and meditates on the relationships between indigenous populations in colonised nations.
Writing
Listening Like Breathing
By Ron Hanson
09.12.2020
Although an influential figure in the development of sound art, New York-based Annea Lockwood hasn't experienced the same level of exposure in New Zealand as she has experienced internationally. In this piece, White Fungus' editor Ron Hanson outlines his journey discovering Lockwood's work and speaks to the artist about her impressive career and pivotal developments in her field.
Writing
Forever Fresh
By Jessica Palalagi
06.11.2020
Jessica Palalagi, co-founder of the In*ter*is*land Collective, describes how their physical base in London, MOKU Pacific HQ, London, has served as a place for tagata Moana in the UK to create and meet since its inception in 2018, and reflects on the highs and lows of the past three years, including their exhibition in late 2019, Mana Moana, Mana Wahine.
Writing
Plants, love, and multispecies engagements
By Essi Kausalainen, Robyn Maree Pickens
09.07.2020
After first meeting at the Saari Residence in the southwest of Finland at the start of 2020, Aotearoa writer and poet Robyn Maree Pickens and Finnish performance artist Essi Kausalainen discuss how their diverse practices can mirror each other, about plants and the more-than-human world, along with the ramifications of Covid on their wellbeing and practice.
Writing
Abstracting Ambivalence
By Eloise Callister-Baker
25.06.2020
From putting her Doctor of Fine Arts on hold to dealing with the isolation caused by the Coronavirus lockdown, Vietnamese/Aotearoa artist Anh Trần discusses why she wanted to take on the two-year Rijksakademie artist program in the Netherlands, her move to Amsterdam and how it's impacted her practice and life.
Writing
Making Art in the time of COVID-19
By Chloe Lane
28.05.2020
Two US-based New Zealand artists - Amy Howden-Chapman in New York and Emma McIntyre in Los Angeles - share their experience of the Covid-19 lockdown, how it has impacted their practice and everyday life, and discuss the possible ecological outcomes of the lockdown, including the shifting of art practices to the online world.
Writing
The Near Side
By Jon Bywater
13.05.2020
The 22nd Biennale of Sydney opened on 14 March 2020 and unfortunately had to close its doors only nine days later due to Covid-19. Prior to its closing, writer Jon Bywater managed to visit NIRIN, looking in particular at participating artists from Aotearoa including Emily Karaka, Elisapeta Heta & John Miller, Lisa Reihana, Kulimoe’anga ‘Stone’ Maka, and FAFSWAG.
Writing
Between Light and Memory
By Sharmini Aphrodite
23.03.2020
In the first essay in our new series focusing on New Zealand arts activity in the Asia region, writer Sharmini Aphrodite reviews André Hemer's show, Images Cast by the Sun, at Yavuz Gallery in Singapore in 2019. Finding parallels between the paintings location in Singapore and their creation in Vienna, Aphrodite articulates their visceral qualities, and ability to transcend materiality.
Writing
Situated practices
By Kathryn Weir, Zhang Hanlu
07.03.2020
Held at Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, the most recent iteration of the ongoing project Cosmopolis included Aotearoa artists Lisa Reihana and Nandita Kumar amongst 40 international artists, all exploring technology and alternative ontologies. Chief curator, Kathryn Weir, and associated curator Zhang Hanlu share their reflections on Cosmopolis #2: rethinking the human.
Writing
Stirring Motion
By Stefanie Bräuer
20.02.2020
Art Historian Stefanie Bräuer takes us through Museum Tinguely’s recent comprehensive exhibition of New Zealand artist Len Lye, exploring Lye’s international life, his move from film to kinetic sculptures and the relationship between the museum's namesake, fellow kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely.
Writing
Handshake 5: In Dialogue
By Roseanne Bartley
22.01.2020
A look at Handshake, a project dedicated to developing emerging New Zealand jewellers nationally and internationally, and their recent exchange with Coda Museum in the Netherlands. Participating jewellers from Aotearoa include Neke Moa, Vivien Atkinson, Sarah Read, Becky Bliss, Vanessa Arthur, Sarah Walker-Holt, Sandra Schmid, Nadene Carr, Caroline Thomas, Brendon Monson, Nik Hanton, and Kelly McDonald.
Writing
Always in Transit
By Aaron Lister
18.09.2019
A conversation with Yona Lee about her new site-specific installation, In Transit (Highway) (2019), presented at the 15th Lyon Biennale, her training as a cellist, and the development of this ongoing project. With an introduction from Daria de Beauvais, Senior Curator at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Co-Curator of this year's Biennale.
Writing
The Discreet Charm of Chance
By Jari Niesner
23.08.2019
In her recent exhibition Following the Rubber Trails, at Frappant Galerie in Hamburg, Germany, Xin Cheng addresses the politics, history and philosophy of rubber, in its varying forms. Writer Jari Nieser explores the artist's performance, film and installation.
Writing
Screaming Strawbears and other Strange Engagements
By Tessa Laird
05.07.2019
From Morris dancing to costume making, Berlin-based artist Matthew Cowan and arts writer Tessa Laird discuss Cowan's interest in folklore, the function of tradition in the modern world and the influence of surrealism on his practice. Cowan's exhibition The Scream of the Strawbear opens at Kunsthalle Giessen in Germany on 7 September 2019.
Writing
An interview with Dane Mitchell
By Contemporary HUM
24.06.2019
HUM's editorial team sat down with artist Dane Mitchell to discuss his work for the New Zealand Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, Post hoc. The work, both ambitious in scale and subject, has sparked discussions on global climate change and meditations on what has truly disappeared from the world.
Writing
Raw Matériel
By Emil McAvoy
10.06.2019
Within the greater context of the recent massacre in Christchurch, San Fransisco-based New Zealand photographer Jono Rotman discusses his new work Matériel which depicts a series of privately owned guns in the US, and his recent publication Mongrelism, which features the New Zealand-based gang, the Mighty Mongrel Mob.
Writing
“Nothing consoles you like despair”
By Boaz Levin
22.03.2019
The work of Berlin-based artist Richard Frater addresses the devastating impact of climate change on our environment, and the despair and human complicity felt in this global phenomenon. In this essay, artist, writer, and curator Boaz Levin unpacks Frater's recent exhibitions in Germany and New Zealand.
Writing
Whose Oceania?
By James Belich, Lana Lopesi, Matariki Williams, Pauline Autet
14.11.2018
Missed HUM's panel discussion Whose Oceania? in London? We're excited to publish the transcript of this discussion, which proved to be a stimulating talk interrogating the themes and issues addressed in the exhibition Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, as well as the responses to it from across Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.
Writing
Push and Pull
By Jessica Douglas
25.10.2018
In the wake of recent discussions of London-based Francis Upritchard's work, Jessica Douglas views the exhibition Wetwang Slack, on now at the Barbican Centre in London, through the aesthetic quality and craftsmanship of Upritchard's work, alongside the wider consequences of her practice.
Writing
Mana Moana in the UK’s year of Captain Cook
By Ahilapalapa Rands, Jo Walsh
21.09.2018
London-based cultural producer Jo Walsh and artist Ahilapalapa Rands discuss some of the exhibitions and programmes taking place in the UK to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's departure to the Pacific, which also resonates to many as the start of colonisation in Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa. In this conversation piece, Rands and Walsh focus in on the projects they have been involved in, working with The British Library, Whitby Library and other UK institutions, and their efforts to disrupt the major narratives surrounding Cook.
Writing
Feminist Hieroglyphics
By Louise Lever
25.06.2018
A conversation with London-based artist Sriwhana Spong about Spong's practice and in particular her recent video work A hook but no fish, 2017, originally presented at the Pump House Gallery in London, which speculates upon a secret language invented by a mystic 12th century abbess, Hildegard of Bingen.
Writing
Maddie Leach: The Grief Prophesy
By Hjalmar Falk
08.06.2018
Maddie Leach's project The Grief Prophesy, created for the Gothenburg International Biennale for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) 2017, addresses the disturbing and intriguing circumstances surrounding an alleged Satanic murder, committed by members of a well-known Swedish black metal band. Swedish historian Hjalmar Falk discusses the work.
Writing
The Transcendent and Domestic in Joanna Margaret Paul's Films
By Eleanor Woodhouse
19.04.2018
Artist, poet and filmmaker, Joanna Margaret Paul passed away suddenly in 2003 leaving behind a vast archive of never-before-seen work. London-based writer Eleanor Woodhouse explores Paul’s practice, and considers the significance of her work being shown abroad, most recently the programme of her filmic work touring the UK: Through a Different Lens.
Writing
He Landed in a Place of Absolute Magic
By Hamish Coney, Kevin Ireland
03.04.2018
Although born in Yorkshire, the late artist Michael Illingworth immigrated to Aotearoa at age 20 in the early 1950s, before returning to England and Europe for a brief but formative period in 1959. Hamish Coney interviews the poet and writer Kevin Ireland OBE, one of Illingworth’s oldest New Zealand friends, on their London years (1959-61); a period of, as Ireland explains, 'high-octane education and inspiration'.
Writing
Learning from Athens (There and Elsewhere)
By Laura Preston, Wystan Curnow
18.12.2017
This is the second part of a correspondence between Laura Preston and Wystan Curnow, in which the two writers' share memories and snapshots of journeys through the art world from 1987 to 2007 and 2017.
Writing
With the sun aglow, I have my pensive moods
By Andrew Clifford
04.12.2017
Andrew Clifford writes on Shannon Te Ao’s installation, With the sun aglow I have my pensive moods, one of four key new commissions for the 2017 Edinburgh Art Festival.
Writing
Seeing documenta 14 from the other south
By Jon Bywater
20.10.2017
New Zealand critic Jon Bywater discusses documenta 14 and the work of participating artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Ralph Hotere, Mataaho Collective and Nathan Pohio, marking the first time New Zealand artists have been included in documenta.
Writing
An interview with Bruce Barber
By Contemporary HUM
22.09.2017
As part of Contemporary HUM's series of interviews with New Zealand artists exhibiting during the 57th Venice Biennale, we talk with Bruce Barber about his work Party without Party (2017), included in the exhibition Personal Structures: Open Borders at the Palazzo Bembo.
Writing
Islands on Sale
By Alastair Carruthers, Contemporary HUM, Mataaho Collective, Tessa Giblin
05.08.2017
In this panel discussion between Erena Baker and Bridget Reweti (Mataaho Collective), Alastair Carruthers (Commissioner of NZ at Venice 2017) and Tessa Giblin (Commissioner and Curator of Ireland at Venice 2017), the participants discuss globalisation, national identity, the politics of representation and New Zealand's role in contemporary international art discourse.
Writing
Luke Willis Thompson: A Sister Image
By Frances Loeffler
15.07.2017
Frances Loeffler writes on London-based New Zealand artist Luke Willis Thompson's residency at the Chisenhale Gallery in London, culminating in autoportrait (2017), a video portrait of Diamond Reynolds reflecting Thompson's ongoing enquiry into questions of race, class and social inequality.