Art Not Science

In this episode of The Physics Room Contemporary Art Kōrero, curator Jane Wallace speaks to play_station facilitator Angel Fitzgerald about the play_station film festival. We also share a composition from Ōtautahi-based artist Sam Norton.

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.