Jane Wallace

Commentary
Silver Screen

Silver Screen

Writing on the virtues of filmic possibility, Susan Sontag identifies that “the distinctive cinematic unit is not the image, but the principle of connection between the images: the relation of a ‘shot’ to the one that preceded and the one that comes after.” It is this ability to manipulate the structure of film that makes the medium special; editing, Sontag proposes, is the reason for film to exist at all. The continuation or dissolution of one scene into the next constitutes the materiality of the moving image; it is defined by the seams where it also might be undone. As such, an artist’s choice to work with moving image comes from an appreciation of its distinct characteristics.

Artist Profile
Spring Time is Heart-break

Spring Time is Heart-break

In anticipation of our major summer exhibition, curatorial assistant Jane Wallace talked to five of the artists involved in the show. Working across a range of media, the twenty-five contemporary artists in Spring Time is Heart-break have a shared interest in storytelling. They consider ideas around communication, distance, memory, the body and materiality, generating works that gently reveal contemporary forms of image-making and circulation. How can we communicate through time, or in a different tongue? What do materials reveal to us as they are transformed from one state to another? From rimurapa harvesting to cavorting queer tableaux and fish ‘n’ chips, Heidi Brickell (Te Hika o Papauma, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tara, Rangitāne, Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Apakura), Priscilla Rose Howe, Lucy Meyle, and Steven Junil Park and John Harris share their energetic practices – a small glimpse of what will be on display this November.

Exhibition

Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa

A major exhibition featuring works that tell stories about personal and collective histories, communication, distance and relationships to our environment.

Exhibition

Bridget Reweti: Ziarah

Ziarah is an Arabic word that refers to an ancestral or spiritual pilgrimage to a gravesite. Developed while artist Bridget Reweti was on residency in the Indonesian city of Jogjakarta, this work traces her attempt to find the unmarked graves of navigator Tupaia and his nephew and apprentice Taiata on nearby Damar Besar Island. 

Exhibition

Meg Porteous and Rea Burton: Nancy Treadler

In this moving-image work, artists Meg Porteous and Rea Burton take inspiration from preening pigeons outside their studio to create an exaggerated mimicry of the art world.