The Audio Visual Room

Image Gwil Owen


Sheyne Tuffery (2)

In ancient Polynesia, birds had an important part to play in everyday life. There was spiritual and material wealth to be gained from their inclusion and respect. For example the name Samoa: "sa" is sacred and "moa" is bird.

I definitely feel like a New Zealander with Samoan heritage, but I know more about Maoridom now, than I do about Samoan culture but that's ok with me, cause I was born and raised in Aotearoa.

My Father is Kiwi/European from Taranaki, and my mother is from Samoa, so I am getting lots of different perspectives.

Manukau: place of wading birds
DVD, 3 mins 30


Image Gwil Owen

Rachael Rakena

We tend to define things as either Maori or Pakeha (New Zealand European) and actually a lot of us spend a lot of time moving between the two, but there is no label for that and it is not a fixed place.

I have returned to the swimmer in the past couple of years to explore the idea of a person existing and moving in a space without certain references. A void space in-between. There is no reference to land, there is no place to stand.

Rerehiko (2003-05)
single-channel video with sound, 2 mins 55 sec

Mihi Aroha (2002)
single channel video with sound, 3 mins

Pacific Washup (2003-04)
A collaborative work with Fez Fa and Brian Fuata
Single-channel DVD with sound, 6 mins

Rerenga Pounamu (2004-05)
A collaborative work with Otene Rakena
single-channel video with sound / pounamu, 12 mins

Image Gwil Owen


Lonnie Hutchinson

The intricate red patterns in Lonnie Hutchinson's moving image work Red (2002) symbolises earth, whenua, pigment, Papatuanuku the earth mother. And yet despite the 'ruddiness' infusing Red; the accompanying soundtrack is Santana's rendition of the smooth classic song 'Black Magic Woman'. For black is the colour that pervades all of Hutchinson's practice; from her sculptural cut-outs into building paper to the inky brushstrokes of her drawings.
Emma Bugden
Red 2002
DVD


Image Gwil Owen


Louise Potiki-Bryant
The word ‘whakaruruhau’ means shelter, so its talking about the shelter of a whare nui, which is a meeting house on a marae, which is place where a community of Maori people would live. It was a double meaning, of shelter of the house, and a particular auntie in my family who was a ‘shelter’ for the young people of that area.
This whare nui was burnt down in an arson attack and was being rebuilt in 2003. It was an urban marae. In the 1960s, when a lot of Maori moved into the cities and were maybe out of their own … it was a place for maybe a whole iwi or a tribe to meet in the city or it was a pan-tribal marae so many tribes would be able to be tangata whenua on this marae in a city away from their tribal areas.

Whakaruruhau (2005)
DVD

Image Rosanna Raymond

SOUTH : VIDEO PORTRAIT : 2005 PART ONE OF TWO

PRODUCED, DIRECTED + EDITED: JAMES PINKER + MARK McCLEAN

FILMED ENTIRELY ON LOCATION IN OTARA, MANUKAU. AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND. 2003.

Thanks to Wahine Malosi Charitable Trust + Manukau School of Visual Arts

Previous exhibitions:
Face Value : Brisbane Museum, Australia.
Face Value : New Media Pacific Portraits. COFA. Sydney Australia.
Te Tuhi Gallery, Pakuranga, New Zealand.
Artnet Gallery, Otara. New Zealand.

Promotional photograph on CD taken in Otara of:
(L) Mark McClean + (R) James Pinker
by Rob McEldowney (2005).

James Pinker James Pinker is a sound and multi-media artist living in Auckland. His work in this exhibition is from a collaboration with English artist Mark McClean. 'SOUTH' is a photographic project that features images made in a portable studio in Otara, South Auckland in 2003. Over a period of two days they randomly asked people to have their photograph made. South has been shown at Te Tuhi gallery, Auckland and at the Ivan Docherty Gallery in NSW, Australia. " It is very rare to do a snapshot of a community in a positive way. We came up with the idea when eating fish and chips in Otara. This is the community that wandered past on those days; we didn't include or exclude anyone. We wanted to focus on the actual people, the positive". James Pinker, 2005.