Art Not Science

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

This episode of Art Not Science is a rebroadcast of one of our earliest episodes; Art Not Science Episode 4 this evening becomes episode 62. Artists Rhea Maheshwari and Kahurangiariki Smith discuss their exhibition Two Oceans at Once with Charlotte Huddleston, reorienting historical time in order to critique colonial legacies. The force of the ocean as both metaphor and articulation of home remains present in Kahurangiariki's practice. One of the artists commissioned to develop a new moving image for our current exhibition Homing Instinct, Kahurangiariki's work Mā te Moana was formed during time in Rarotonga, swimming near to where many ancestral waka departed for Aotearoa. Tracking travel between Rarotonga and Cambodia, Mā te Moana responds to the push and pull of the ocean, and ongoing indigenous mobility through the moana.

In this episode, we share a poem and an interview from our curriculum session hosted by Samoa House Library in the context of our recent exhibition, Distance is a blade, curated by Amy Weng. The poem, In the Animal Garden of My Body, by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, and the interview between Hans Demeyer and Lauren Berlant, Intimacy as World-Making, both orbit themes of memory, intimacy, and affective forms of myth-making that were central to the exhibition.

In this episode we continue on from Episode 57 with the remaining readings from Correspondence 3.1: Conversations about the weather can no longer be regarded as small talk. Hana Pera Aoake reads their essay Meeting the Lake, and Honey Brown reads Non-Human Others and Kaupapa Māori Research by Te Kawehau Hoskins and Alison Jones.

In this episode, we will be sharing with you a conversation between Abby Cunnane and Dayle Palfreyman. Dayle is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, working in sculpture and installation, primarily using metal and beeswax. Dayle's work was recently included in The Physics Room exhibition I'm so into you, co-curated by Abby and Jess Clifford. This discussion around Dayle's work The loosener of limbs focuses on some of the influences on their practice, including translations of Sappho and the knowledge of bees.

In this episode, we will be sharing with you a recent talk: Interrogating Notions of Peace by Mahdis Azarmandi. The talk offers an exploration into the intricacies of 'peace' against a backdrop of genocide and colonial violence. Her talk challenges conventional understandings of peace and violence, emphasising the practice of 'hope as a discipline' as a pathway towards imagining a world without war.

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode we share a talk between Jess Clifford and Abby Cunnane, an informal discussion following the opening of I'm So Into You, with artists Laila Majid, Zuqiang Peng and Dayle Palfreyman. The show developed from an earlier project of Jess', To the friend who did not save my life, hosted by Enjoy Contemporary Art Space in late 2023.

In this episode, we'll be sharing with you two audio tracks by Ōtautahi based artist Luke Shaw. These works were originally made as part of an installation work, Sleepwalker, which was shown at RM Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau in late 2023. In this presentation the work is stripped back to audio only, by the Opawa 45s: Luke Shaw and bandmate Luke Wood. Sleepwalker draws from an archive of found slide images, and uses processes of rerecording, imagining a sleepwalker as a kind of spectral figure with the ability to move fluidly between memories and cinematic planes.

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode, we'll be sharing readings from Correspondence issue 2.2. This episode includes the editorial by Orissa Keane which introduces the theme of this issue, followed by Lucy Meyle reading Particle Images, Millie Godfery reading Breathing Room, and Albert L Refiti reading Being-Social: The Context in Which the Vā Has to Embed Itself.

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode, we'll be sharing a talk with Ana Iti, an artist currently based in Heretaunga Hastings. Ana's solo project, I am a salt lake, is on now at The Physics Room. The talk focuses on the three core elements in Ana's work - the mineral salt, the drawing on a foggy window, the screens of text - circling loosely round them and returning to ideas of voice, narrative, multiplicity and risk, that connect the three.

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode of Art, Not Science, we wanted to offer something restorative, reflective, potentially universe expanding, in acknowledgement of Matariki season here in Aotearoa. We return to the work of three practitioners we've worked with previously, a collaboration between Balamohan Shingade and Nkosi Nkululeko, and a work by sound artist Rachel Shearer, Pounamu Becoming Crystal, Part 1, from 2018.

In this episode, we'll be sharing an artist talk with Te Whanganui-a-Tara-based artist and curator Daniel John Corbett Sanders. Daniel is interested in critical geographies and social power structures, especially the relationship between LGBTQIA+ people and political economies. Daniel's talks about his practice and work in the recent exhibition, Backdirt, alongside Ōtautahi-based artist Priscilla Rose Howe.

In this episode, we'll be sharing a recent artist talk with Yona Lee. Yona's exhibition, Objects in Practice, is a series of material gestures that prompt us to consider the role of iteration or rehearsal within artistic practice. Yona's repertoire of actions, built up over time, provides a means to express the habitual and intricate drama of our everyday lives.

In this episode, we'll be sharing a special conversation with Rei Gallery. Located at the foot of Ōhinehou, Rei gallery consists of a collective of artists from across Aotearoa. Their kaupapa is to collectively bring the identity of Te Waipounamu forward, uphold tino rangatiratanga, and empower up and coming Māori toi practitioners. However, as we learned in this conversation, Rei is only the most recent initiative of Whakaraupō Carving Centre Trust.

In this episode, Orissa Keane be sharing a selection of readings from Correspondence Issue 2.1, The Physics Room's biannual serial publication. This episode includes readings by Jane Wallace, David Garcia, Ziggy Lever, Isla Martin, and Erin Lee.

In this episode, we'll be sharing a recent lecture by Carl Mika, titled Wa and it's countercolonial possibilities: Implications for the human self. This talk confronts the terms and concepts ‘time and space' from a Māori philosophical perspective and replaces them with the possibility that all things are in a state of profound Now-ness, which the human self participate in.

In this episode, we'll be sharing a recent lecture titled Beyond Safe White Spaces by Naarm-based artist, writer and curator, Andy Butler. In this lecture, Andy looks at how museums, galleries, and art histories more broadly, are going through processes of cultural upheaval and how we might find moments of optimism, joy, humour and solidarity through art.

First up in this episode, we'll be sharing an artist talk from our current exhibition, the way things are, by Tāmaki-based painter brunelle dias. Then we'll share with you a selection of poems by Nicola Farquhar, as part of our latest publication, Heavy trees, arms and legs.

In this episode, Abby Cunnane speaks with Nina Oberg-Humphries about Fibre Gallery, a Moana artists gallery recently opened in Ōtautahi earlier this year. As well as being the co-founder and director of the Tangata Moana Trust, within which the gallery sits, Nina is an artist and a proud alumni of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies Residency Programme.

In this episode, we are sharing two special events, beginning with an artists talk from The moon and the pavement, The Physics Room's current offsite exhibition at Ashburton Art Gallery. Next, we have an essay reading from our new publication Heavy Trees, Arms and Legs by our very own Abby Cunnane. Heavy Trees, Arms and Legs expands upon the offsite exhibition by Nicola Farquhar & Sorawit Songsataya of the same name shown at The Suter Art Gallery in 2021.

In this episode, we are sharing an artist talk by Anchi Lin. Anchi is a performance and new media artist of Taiwanese Indigenous Atayal and Hō-ló descent based in Taipei. Perhaps she comes from/to___Alang was a Physics Room offsite exhibition that ran between the 23rd of June to the 10th July 2022.

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode, we are sharing our recent Wetland Wānanga exploring ngā taonga mahinga kai. Māia Abraham (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngā Rauru) and Maatakiwi Wakefield (Kāi Tahu whānui, Te Ati Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Maniapoto) of the Māori Library Services share their knowledge on mahinga kai and the relationship between Ngāi Tahu and the significant wetlands within the Ōtautahi area.

In this episode, we are sharing a panel discussion from our current exhibition Te Whakawhitinga with artist Jeremy Leatinu'u, cinematographer Ian Powell, and film narrators Hunaara Kaa and Poata Alvie McKree.

In this episode, Abby Cunnane talks to Xi Li about their 3D animation work Spirit Ether, which presents a world in which capitalism determines not only the aesthetic of cities, but also permeates a spiritual realm.

In this episode we share an artist talk with Wai Ching Chan and Tessa Ma'auga about their work in Kāpuia ngā aho 單絲不綫, a collaborative exhibition that explores ancient Chinese narratives in connection with people, materials, and relationships in Aotearoa.

In this episode Abby Cunnane talks to Owen Connors, Laura Duffy, and Aliyah Winter about their work in For the feral splendour, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and textiles that engage with ideas about that which is natural, unnatural, supernatural, and the transformative potential of queer narratives that connect these things.

In this episode we are sharing the audiobook of the first issue of our new serial publication Correspondence. This free, biannual serial will publish pairs of audio/text/page-works, which are initiated as a form of correspondence, to recognise the fundamental role of relationships in contemporary publishing and artistic practice, support them, and make them audible. Hear Terry Craven and Joan Fleming, Faith Wilson, Kirsty Dunn and Kommi Tamati-Elliffe, and Shivanjani Lal read their contributions

In this episode, Deborah Rundle and Josephine Jelicich talk to Abby Cunnane about their work in World made of steel, made of stone. They were unable to join us for the artist talk ahead of the opening as they are based in Tāmaki, so we are grateful that we were at least able to meet for a talk about their work over Zoom. Hear them talk about their practises and the process of making each of their works in relation to an exhibition that recognises making as a form of thinking. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

Honey Brown, Isabel Wadeson-Lee, and Daegan Wells, three of the artists in World made of steel, made of stone, discuss their work in this exhibition about a return to making in contemporary art.

In this month's episode of Art, Not Science, we are sharing a panel discussion with members of The Veiqia Project, a creative research project inspired by the practice of Fijian female tattooing of veiqia. We were joined by Dr Tarisi Sorovi-Vunidilo, Margaret Aull, Joana Monolagi, and Luisa Tora, the 2021 Creative New Zealand / University of Canterbury Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies Artist in Residence in person and over zoom. Recording on the first day of iLakolako ni weniqia: A Veiqia Project exhibition, this panel discussed the exhibition, as well as the history and scope of The Veiqia Project, giving further insight into this ongoing work.

In this episode of Art, Not Science, we present a talk with Luisa Tora, a member of The Veiqia Collective and the 2021 CNZ / UC Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies Artist in Residence. Recorded ahead of the opening of their Physics Room exhibition iLakolako ni weniqia: A Veiqia Project exhibition, Luisa speaks more broadly about past The Veiqia Project exhibitions, collaboration, and the joys and challenges of presenting community focused work in contemporary art galleries.

In Episode 26 artist Emily Parr talks about Surfacing, her solo exhibition of large-scale 35mm film photographs. These photographs are part of her research towards a PhD, a process which in these early stages is guided by narratives of whale migration.

Nicola Farquhar and Sorawit Songsataya discuss their work in Heavy trees, arms and legs, our offsite exhibition that considers the potential of imagined forms to generate more fluid understandings of the environment we are a part of.⠀

Description: In this episode we enter a space of rongo with artist Rachel Shearer who talks about Te Huri Wai, a seven channel sound installation that she made in collaboration with Cathy Livermore for our current exhibition Light enough to read by. During the episode, we will also be sharing a mono mix of Te Huri Wai. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode of Art, Not Science, Alix Ashworth, Caitlin Clarke, Dave Marshall, and Maia McDonald talk about the politics and practicalities of working with clay. They discuss their influences, inspirations and communities, as well as aspects of sourcing and firing materials within Aotearoa and beyond. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

This month we are sharing the artist talk from our newly opened exhibition Bedrock with curator Abby Cunnane and artists Emerita Baik, Maia McDonald, and Nââwié Tutugoro Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

This month we will be broadcasting the talk from our exhibition Shelter House with Jamie Hanton and artist Grace Crothall. Shelter House draws on an atmosphere, material textures and sounds familiar to the artist from growing up in the charismatic pentecostal movement in the 90s. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this month's episode we are presenting talks with the artists who created the two collaborative commissions from our exhibitions Monitor 3.0 and 3.1. Min-Young Her and Orissa Keane discuss their moving image installation As you come down and Qianye Lin and Qianhe 'AL' Lin discuss their work Thus the Blast Carried It, Into the World 它便随着爆破, 冲向了世界. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In Episode 19 of Art, Not Science we have another summer listening special—the HAMSTER Whitu audiobook featuring all 4 contributions by Erin Harrington, Eloise Callister-Baker, Spencer Hall, and Nina Oberg Humphries. Issue Whitu carries on from where Issue Ono left off, asking “Do you believe?" Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode of Art, Not Science we have a special double feature! First we have Nina Oberg Humphries’ discussing her current exhibition TA’AI. Following Nina, Judith Jones a Wellington-based audio describer and visitor host at Te Papa Tongarewa has created an audio described tour of TA’AI for blind and low vision audiences.

In this episode we are sharing Stones, Site, and Gothic Formations, a tour of The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, hosted by art and architectural historian Laura Dunham who uses Martin Awa Clarke Langdon’s project Kōhatu as a point of departure. Contemporary artists' talks, views and news from The Physics Room

In this episode of Art, Not Science, we are sharing the talk from Martin Awa Clarke Langdon's exhibition Room to breathe: Ka tau hā te mauri, an exhibition comprising three distinct but interwoven collaborative art projects: What’s in a name?, To hold up the sky, and Kōhatu.

In Episode 14 we are sharing the High Street Histories tour, a public programme that accompanies Eddie Clemens’ Kiosk: Directors’ Commentary, an exhibition that explores the history and disappearance of the Kiosk. In this tour you'll learn more about the history and context of galleries around the Kiosk in the High Street area from artists, directors, and curators involved in past and future spaces. Our Access Coordinator Audrey Baldwin, Louise Palmer of High Street Project, Helen Calder of 64zero3, Grant Banbury of Campbell Grant Galleries, and Lee Richardson and Liam Krijgsman of Hot Lunch will share insights and origin stories, art historical facts and tidbits, as well as the highs and lows of setting up running and these spaces.

Using video, performance, and sculptural installation, Clemens will explore the history of the Kiosk through a number of perspectives including his own exhibition history, as well as the institutionally-recorded history via website text, and histories collected from past artists, staff, and Directors

In Episode 12 of Art, Not Science, we present the pre-recorded artist talk from our current exhibition Domino Domino. Artists Daniel Shaskey, Luke Shaw, and Phoebe Hinchliff discuss their work in both Domino Domino and Sympathetic Resonance.