Exhibition

Olivia Webb: Anthems of belonging

Songs of belonging, struggle and unconditional love in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Collection
Adzan

Rozana Lee Adzan

Identity, migration and belonging are explored in this work, which records the Adzan (Islamic call to prayer) at a beach near the artist’s hometown of Aceh, Indonesia. The video is projected onto fabric soiled by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, salvaged by Lee’s late father. This screen recalls sunshades commonly used in Aceh, and also Wayang, an Indonesian puppet theatre in which stories are told with shadows. Indonesia is home to over 300 ethnic groups. Growing up there as a fourth-generation Chinese migrant, Lee experienced racial and religious tensions. When she came to Aotearoa New Zealand, she again felt like an outsider. It led her to ask what it might take to truly claim a place as home.

Director's Foreword
Director's Foreword

Director's Foreword

In mt last Bulletin foreword we looked backward, celebrating 200 issues and more than forty years of publishing. This time I want to use this space to look forward, and to think about what role this magazine will fill in the coming years. I want Bulletin to increasingly develop as a place for ideas, experiments and opinions. The writing in its pages will be guided by the Gallery’s programme, but we aim to expand upon the ideas and themes in an accessible manner. We want to aim high and continue to develop our readership as we believe Bulletin is one of the best and most readable art magazines in New Zealand.

Commentary
The Edge of the Sea

The Edge of the Sea

A vision of New Zealand’s past from 1995:

Europeans first imagined New Zealand as “a garden and a pasture in which the best elements of British society might grow into an ideal nation”... When the smoke of the colonists’ fires cleared at the end of the 19th century, New Zealand had become a different country. Māori had lost their most precious life-support system. Only in the hilliest places did the forest still come down to the sea. Huge slices of the ancient ecosystem were missing, evicted and extinguished. Our histories, however, have had neither the sense of place nor ecological consciousness to explain what has happened.

Commentary
Temples for Curious Minds

Temples for Curious Minds

I want to tell you a story. A ‘curiodyssey’ (which by the way, I thought I’d made up but is the name of an actual museum in California). So, a curiodyssey of happy places, told through the science of wellbeing.

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