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Xin Cheng Seeing Like A Forest (video still) 2019. Single-channel HD digital video, colour, sound.
Spheres: An Online Video Project
Note
Over the past few weeks, I have been working with fellow curator Nathan Pohio on an online video project that we’ve called Spheres. I’ve only recently joined the Gallery, so it’s been helpful to have something to focus on from home as well as a reason to be in touch with some interesting artists.
Every curator has a different part of the job they enjoy most, and for me it’s the opportunity to learn from artists and engage with the ideas that go into the making of a work – probably the same reason that some of you love looking at art. Curating in collaboration reminded me that we all bring our own perspective. For example, Nathan is an artist too so he tends to be curious about how something is made and he brings a wealth of knowledge about filmmaking and its history in particular.
The small series we’ve pulled together includes several videos that reflect on the idea of social distance and our personal environments, and we invited five artists to make something new from their ‘sphere’. Hopefully these works provide you with some new ways of thinking about the current situation where we all need to stay a bit closer to home. It’s hard not to appreciate your neighbourhood with fresh eyes after watching Xin Cheng’s work.
Xin Cheng Seeing Like A Forest (video still) 2019. Single-channel HD digital video, colour, sound
Related reading: Covid-19
Exhibition
Spheres: An Online Video Project
April – October 2020
An online series of moving image works exploring social distance and personal environments including works from Xin Cheng, John Chrisstoffels, Conor Clarke, Ronnie van Hout, Sonya Lacey, Janet Lilo, Sione Monu, James Oram, Nova Paul, Bridget Reweti, Sriwhana Spong and Matavai Taulangau.
Resource
By Sea
Sonya Lacey, 2015
Single-channel HD digital video, sound, duration 9min 7 sec
Courtesy of the artist and Robert Heald Gallery
Originally commissioned by CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa
Camerawork by Campbell Farquhar and Sonya Lacey
Narration by Fuyuko Akiyoshi
Music by Johnny Chang: folk music background (excerpt)
By Sea is a carefully constructed narrative on the merging of language and architecture, a literal unfolding of what it might mean to live inside a letter. It tells the story of a fictional seaside apartment building, part of a complex that forms the words Par Mer, written in a bold, italic typeface. Most filming takes place inside an architectural model intricately built out of cast salt. Originally commissioned as a response to the poetry of Joanna Margaret Paul.
Resource
Maʻu Pe Kai’
Matavai Taulangau, 2019
Online edit, two-channel HD digital video shown as single-channel, colour, sound, duration 4 min 41 sec
Courtesy of the artist
With thanks to the Tongan Community in Kaikohe and Okaihau
In this work Matavai Taulangau captures the harvesting of kumala, showing the connections of labour and cultural knowledge. Originally shown at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, the two-channel version of ‘Maʻu Pe Kai’ (2019) documented three kumala harvests: one by the Tongan community in Okaihau in Northland, one by the artist’s mother in nearby Kaikohe, and one by the artist in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. This newly edited version for online viewing offers us a glimpse into the hard work of harvest and the relationships forged through shared labour and food.
Read a response to the work from Salome Tanuvasa here: http://enjoy.org.nz/blog/2020/04/new-landscapes-salome-tanuvasa-reflects-on-matavai
Resource
Seeing Like A Forest
Xin Cheng, 2019
Single-channel HD digital video, colour, sound, duration 34 min 31 sec.
Camera: Jesús Pulpón
Calligraphy: Wigger Bierma
Courtesy of the artist
With thanks to Creative New Zealand
Everyday resourcefulness is central to the work of Xin Cheng. Her recent film Seeing Like A Forest was made in Hamburg. While living in the city for three years, she reflected on over a decade of research observing the small modifications to shared spaces made by non-specialists, around the Asia-Pacific and Europe. Walking, talking, doing and making, Cheng learns from close looking; in this work she shows some of the approaches people take to adapting their communal environments, examples of inventive resourcefulness and heartwarming waste minimisation.
Notes
Director’s Update
With a welcome shift back to Level 2 in our collective fight against COVID-19, we are delighted to reopen our doors to visitors.
Notes
Bringing up the rear
We finish our handwashing poems with R A K Mason's Song of Allegiance, read, as was the Keats sonnet that started this series, by me.
Notes
House Rules by Joanna Margaret Paul
We are delighted to present Joanna Margaret Paul's House Rules, read by its creator's daughter Magdalena Harris. Dishwasher tension will, we are sure, be familiar to all.
The poet also created the painting you see, which is called Barrys Bay: Interior with Bed and Doll.
And although it's a day after Mother's Day, let's today salute all mothers and their efforts, especially over the last few weeks.
Notes
Running Water by Robyn Hyde
We don't want the poems to stop but dare we hope we are inching closer to re-opening? In the interests of playing it safe, let's keep washing our hands though, today with Visitor Host Dora Mullins and some exquisitely sad lines from Robin Hyde.
Notes
Cat in the Dark by Margaret Mahy
A beautiful poem today by Margaret Mahy, beautifully read by 10 year old Elsie Billington.
A minute of pure handwashing pleasure.
Notes
A Calm Day by Basil Dowling
Today our Graphic Designer Peter Bray reads about the sound of the ocean when the wind dies down. Only Basil Dowling puts it lot better than that in A Calm Day.
Notes
I saw her face by Robin Judkins
We've had lots of poetry responding to nature but poetry's other great theme has been absent. We put that right today with a love poem by Robin Judkins. A simple expression of love you might say, but listen right to the end and then say with confidence what happens next.
That will take a minute so your hands will be sparkling. Today's reader is Visitor Host Tim Hobbs.
Notes
And the animals shall inherit the earth
It’s been interesting observing how nature has quietly but very quickly reclaimed the earth since we have all gone into Covid-19 lockdown. My social media timelines have been peppered with images of animals wandering where humans can’t, boars roaming in Barcelona, peacocks in Dubai, deer in Japan and schools of tiny fish in the now clear waters of Venice to name a few. Related of course are the clearing skies around the world.
Notes
To a child dancing in the wind by W B Yeats
Today our Business Administrator Jackie Heavey reads a poem by a compatriot of hers, William Butler Yeats, in which the innocence of childhood is envied.
Yes you can now go to the beach, but keep your distance and, of course, keep washing those hands.