In partnership with Lot23, Ms. Interpreted presents: ‘Point of Hue’ – Photography Exhibition
‘Point of Hue’ is the first of what we hope to be many, all-women artists exhibition under the curatorial umbrella Ms. Interpreted. The name for the exhibition ‘Point of Hue’ is inspired by 11 years old, Alfred Mackenzie, who is striving for a better world beyond the patriarchy and the white male privileges and supremacy. He points out that our world is not post gendered and that perhaps we are not just one human family. ‘After all these years of men before women attitude….hue is simply the first syllable for human, just like man is the second. Future will now be free to all genders.’ These words are reminding us not just that ‘the children are our future’ but that history is itself subject to change by individuals and their voices. The future as we know it remains to be negotiated and we see that negotiation taking place in this exhibition through the artists’ point of view:
Exhibiting Artists:
Caryline Boreham is an Auckland based artist currently teaching at MIT’s Faculty of Creative Arts. She has exhibited in galleries, public commissions, collections and publications in New Zealand, Australia and the US. She recently completed a residency at Watch This Space Gallery in Alice Springs Australia and is a 2016 Prix Pictet Award nominee.
In her approach Boreham achieves the emptiness of the space enveloping the viewer. As we look we notice the space lacking in performativity it was created for. There is a crossing of themes between the rooms and their functionality. As viewers we are implicated as if we are about to step onto a stage and perform using the clues left for us by the artist. The photographs have a valence measurement pertaining to the power of combining the viewer/actor/participant with the functionality of the hue/man-made space. Their ghostly footprints are fascinating to us.
Suzanne Tamaki is a New Zealand fibre-based artist of Te Arawa, Ngāti Maniapoto and Tūhoe descent. She operates under the label Native Sista and was one of the founding members of the Pacific Sisters. Informed by indigenous concerns of Aotearoa, New Zealand, Tamaki’s jewellery, fashion and photography portrays a reclamation of colonised spaces.
Tamaki’s work focuses on representation of contemporary Maori and breaking through the stereotypes of Maori portraiture. The subjects are in the position of power/status/mana. They appear to be iconic and through the power of adornment reaching the status of ‘noble’ and striking. We are experiencing the artist as a sovereign, as a mother and as objects of adornment, where the value is clearly aesthetic as well as political.
Australian born, Rebecca Ann Hobbs is an Auckland based artist who works with new media to create video and still images that mostly celebrate dynamic bodies and their relationships with specific sites.
Hobbs’ work reminds us of the continuous negotiation between hue/mans and the rest of the natural world. There is a strategy of containment rather than excessive feeling and although she is using her own body to communicate her personal relationships with other species…it is without exhibitionism. As the artist poses herself within her own work it only has the air of the theatrical through what looks like a deliberate outcome – artist and image maker. Theatrical is however in the eye of the beholder.
Karen Inderbitzen-Waller and Delphine Avril Planqueel are fashion and art photographers and stylists born in New Zealand and France respectively. Residing and shooting between Paris and New Zealand, their photographs are broad in subject and rich in reference, often pointing to films and paintings from an array of different genre and periods. This conceptual depth and blurring of boundaries allows their work to sit comfortably in both the fashion and art worlds.
In the age of pornography and detached presence of online sexual activity, we are drawn to the retrograde representation of women and their bodies. When present, women are not seen through some representation of violence and lack of power. Quite the opposite, the duo are presenting us with the world that is always sensuous and somewhat resembling a snapshot within a momentary time capsule. It’s a romantic lens where the women and the spaces they occupy are seductive to us, charming us.
Friday night performances:
To’asavili Lillian Tuputala is of Samoan heritage, born in Aotearoa, raised in Oakland California. Poet, spoken word artist
Christina Conrad was born in New Zealand in 1942, the daughter of the English/Jewish painter, Patrick Hayman. She is regarded by many art historians and critics as New Zealand's most exciting and original artist, and its leading exponent of "art brut". Her paintings have been exhibited in major galleries in both the north and south islands, as well as in Australia, the U.K. and the United States.
Tusiata Avia is a leading Pacific poet, performer and children’s author has travelled the world performing her one woman poetry show Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. She currently teaches creative writing and performing arts at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
The Super Rad Babes are an inclusive Auckland based girl gang hell bent on creating community. Our club night is about reclaiming a space for women to call the shots, own the sound system and the dance floor.
Saturday 1pm Public programme: Exhibiting artists Caryline Boreham Rebecca Ann Hobbs Suzanne Tamaki Karen Inderbitzen-Waller & Delphine Avril Planqueel
In conversation with Elisabeth Easther
Followed by the screening of Christina Conrad’s autobiographical film HERETIC
Elisabeth Easther has what is known in the trade as a ‘portfolio career’. Upon discovering that law school wasn’t really her bag, she completed a degree in theatre and film at Victoria University, followed by a diploma in acting from The NZ Drama School: Toi Whaakari. After a couple of years playing Shortland Street’s notorious villain, the evil Nurse Carla, she became a breakfast radio host which required a lot less make up and marginally less bloodshed. From the late 90s wanderlust took over and she spent the subsequent decade travelling the world, taking on all manner of odd jobs during which time she discovered that her vocation was writing. Today Elisabeth writes for magazines and newspapers about travel and leisure, arts and culture; she is also a regular contributor to Radio NZ National and an award-winning playwright, and through her script work she is intent on creating strong roles for women.
Ms.Interpreted, is a creative curatorial label engaging with anti-racist, feminist art. The aim is to create networks and spaces to articulate the inequalities of gender, race and class aspects of the world we live in. The label is under the conceptual direction of Dina Jezdic currently working as the Adult and Tertiary Programmer at Auckland Museum, Tamaki Paenga Hira where she curates the LATE at the Museum series.
LOT23 Cafe | Gallery | Studio | Venue 23 Minnie Street, Eden Terrace, AK
