Heritage

Calendar

Jade Hadfield, MIRROR: New views on photography

19 May 2023 —
28 January 2024

State Library Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Calendar

Edith Amituanai, Martin Sagadin, Sriwhana Spong and Pati Tyrell, 'Legacies' international tour

03 April —
31 August 2023

ADM Gallery Singapore; Stelo, Portland, USA; LUX, London; Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany; Storage Art Space, Bangkok

Writing

Still Alive

By Stuart Munro

18.10.2022

For this year's Aichi Triennale, writer Stuart Munro takes a trip to some of its more isolated venues to see works by Aotearoa artists Nikau Hindin and Yuki Kihara. Visiting buildings of historical significance where the various parts of the exhibition are installed, Munro unravels the far-reaching connections of Hindin and Kihara's contributions to family, survival and place. 

Writing

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series

By Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Ariana Davis, Jaimie Waititi, Jessica Palalagi

25.09.2021

The final episode in our four-part talanoa series, produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, sees writer and poet Anne-Marie Te Whiu respond to a discussion between Ariana Davis, Jessica Palalagi and Jaimie Waititi as they explore the idea of ReMoanafication, individual and collective connections, and reclaiming narratives.

Writing

A protest and a mourning ritual

By Michelangelo Corsaro

11.05.2021

In their work for the 13th Gwangju Biennale, the Bad Fiji Gyals call attention to the legacy of Girmitiya women, indentured labourers from the Indian subcontinent recruited by British colonial authorities to work on Fiji’s sugarcane plantations. Associate Curator Michelangelo Corsaro writes about the collaborative work of Aotearoa-based artist Quishile Charan and US-based artist Esha Pillay.

Writing

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series

By AJ Fata, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Drew Broderick, Josh Tengan

29.05.2021

The third episode of our four-part talanoa series, produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, sees writer and poet Anne-Marie Te Whiu respond to a discussion between AJ Fata, Josh Tengan, and Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick who explore the concept of time and ancestral knowledge as a path for the historical future.

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

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

Mata Aho Collective at the Dhaka Art Summit

By Pauline Autet

21.04.2020

We finish our first series focusing on the Asia region with Contemporary HUM Editor Pauline Autet interviewing Mata Aho Collective on their participation in the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh in February 2020, where they partook in panel discussions and practised a type of waiata (song) called a pātere.

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

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

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

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

Urges of Imperialism Unravelled

By Rhana Devenport

01.05.2017

Rhana Devenport, Curator of the New Zealand Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, sets the context for Emissaries, Lisa Reihana's exhibition representing Aotearoa New Zealand at the 57th Biennale di Venezia.

Writing

Preparing the Ground

By Chloe Barker

22.04.2017

Arts Programme Coordinator at Tyneside Cinema Chloe Barker reflects on New Zealand artist Cat Auburn's new moving image work Preparing the Ground (2017) and first solo exhibition in the UK, at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Writing

A New Commonwealth Internationalism

By Aaron Lister, Damian Skinner

01.03.2017

Writer and curator Aaron Lister talks to art historian Damien Skinner about the 'New Commonwealth Internationalism', a moment of post-WWII postcolonial internationalism in the British art scene, and its influence on British and New Zealand art history.

Writing

Forever Fresh Talanoa Series

By Afatasi The Artist, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Momoe i manu ae ala atea’e Tasker

28.02.2021

In this first episode of our new special series of talanoa (online conversations) produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, Anne-Marie Te Whiu responds to a discussion between Afatasi the Artist and Momoe i manu ae ala atea’e Tasker on identity and how it's expressed in their creative practices, finding their community in various daily rituals while living in the diaspora, and maintaining their connections to 'home'.

Writing

What's for - Decolonial - Dinner?

By Tania Willard

18.12.2019

Co-curated by Lana Lopesi, the exhibition Transits and Returns at Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists from Northern America and the Pacific, and includes Aotearoa artists BC Collective, Louisa Afoa, Ahilapalapa Rands, and Edith Amituanai. In this essay, Indigenous Canadian artist and curator Tania Willard contextualises the work within a wider art history and personal history.

 

Writing

A Question of Identity

By Grace Lai

08.11.2019

New Zealand jeweller Johanna Zellmer's practice focuses on national identity and the varying bureaucracy that can divide us. In this essay, Curator Grace Lai looks specifically at Zellmer's recent three-month residency in Gothenburg, Sweden, and her exhibition of crafted and altered coins which acted as a vehicle to comment on the current political climate.

Writing

The Factory and its Memories

By Kari Schmidt

16.10.2019

A look at artist Matthew Galloway's residency at Cripta 747 in Turin, Italy, and the resulting exhibition The Factory and its Memories, which concentrates on the now defunct Nebiolo factory building, whose history is engrained in Italian graphic design and typography, reflecting Galloway’s own background as a graphic designer.

Writing

Sriwhana Spong’s Ida-Ida

By Leah Reynolds

09.08.2019

London-based artist Sriwhana Spong has been exhibiting widely throughout the UK in 2019. In this essay, writer Leah Reynolds reviews Spong’s recent exhibition Ida-Ida at Spike Island in Bristol, considering the key, interrelating ideas of her work, and Spong’s use of a variety of mediums.

Writing

Oceania at the Met

By Maia Nuku

28.11.2018

Maia Nuku, Associate Curator for Oceanic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, talks about the ways in which new curatorial practices are bringing life to the Oceanic collection at the Met. Nuku's collaborative research projects sees new connections between Pacific artists, scholars, cultural practitioners, curators and conservators, as well as Digital and Education teams from within the museum, allowing an activation of objects, and a "complication of institutional narratives."

Project

Whose Oceania?

Panel discussion in London

Whose Oceania? is Contemporary HUM’s second public panel discussion, held on 29 September 2018 to coincide with the opening of the Oceania exhibition, on at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

This exhibition is a major international event for Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific, and we have decided to take the opportunity to bring together several professionals from different backgrounds and practices in Māori and Pacific art, as well as colonial studies, to offer informed and critical responses to the show.

Writing

Kate Newby: I can’t nail the days down

By Chloe Geoghegan

14.08.2018

I can't nail the days down is Brooklyn-based Kate Newby's first Austrian solo exhibition, presented at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna in 2018. Based both inside and outside of the Kunsthalle, the work invited visitors to take a closer look at Newby's engagements with the context of exhibition.

Writing

Learning from Athens (There and Elsewhere)

By Laura Preston, Wystan Curnow

18.12.2017

For over a year, Laura Preston was based in Athens to work as associate editor of documenta 14 publications, including South as a State of Mind released in four issues. HUM invited the art writer and editor to reflect on this experience, who in turn, extended the invitation to fellow New Zealander and distinguished art critic, curator and poet Wystan Curnow. What results is a two-part correspondence in which the pair reflect on their imagined and lived experiences of Europe coming from their other south.