Presented by The Physics Room in conjunction with Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, these films have been selected by artist Ilish Thomas as reference points for her current exhibition The Crystal Palace (The Physics Room, 31 October–30 November).

The Crystal Palace traces The Crystal Palace Theatre in Maungawhau, Tāmaki Makaurau, an old cinema bought into by the artist’s grandfather. Since its closure some years ago, the building has given way to grief, colliding wishes, the property market, time, and the elements. Through the figure of the chudel, female ghosts that appear in Gujarati folklore, Ilish enters The Crystal Palace and encounters a theatre that, like the chudel, is suspended beyond chronological time. Unable to touch the ground, chudel are known for troubling their surviving kin, and can access places that the self might not, softening boundaries between structures both built and familial.

Ilish will provide a brief introduction to these two films on the night.

Ilish Thomas is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, whose practice explores the complexity of South Asian diasporic identity through themes of whakapapa, memory, grief, loss and belonging. Working across textiles, video, audio, and other archival strategies, they engage modes of storytelling and oral histories as tools for cultural navigation and mediation. Central to her work is a focus on ‘in-betweenness’ and of generating new political imaginaries.