Opinion
Writing
Living Things
16.03.2024
In this short piece, originally put together as a HUMcard mailout for Contemporary HUM's Publishers Circle, Aotearoa-based artist Yukari Kaihori reflects on her two-week residency at Ma Umi Residencies on Ishigaki Island, Japan. The impacts of climate change and marine debris on the subtropical island offer the context for a meditation on the ecological entanglements between objects, animals, and places.
Project
HUM stands for NZ at Venice
Special feature
In light of the review of Aotearoa New Zealand’s ‘official’ presence at the Venice Biennale, HUM invited New Zealanders on- and off-shore who have visited or been involved in ‘New Zealand at Venice’ projects—as artists, pavilion attendants, exhibition installers or designers—to reflect on how involvement in (or experience of) our previous national pavilions have influenced their own careers, and the international profile of contemporary art from Aotearoa.
Writing
Aotearoa Reviews its Official Participation in the Venice Biennale
By Anna Brown, Bruce Barber, Heather Galbraith, Hutch Wilco, James Goggin, Jennifer Flay, Jhana Millers, Julia Holderness, Laura Preston, Michael Stevenson, Ron Hanson, Sophie Thorn, Tessa Giblin, Tessa Laird
26.09.2022
In light of the current review of Aotearoa New Zealand’s ‘official’ presence at the Venice Biennale, HUM invited responses from New Zealanders on- and off-shore who have visited or been involved in ‘New Zealand at Venice’ projects, as artists, pavilion attendants, exhibition installers or designers, to enable insights into how involvement in (or experience of) our previous national pavilions have influenced people’s own careers, and the profile of contemporary art from Aotearoa.
Writing
Clinic of Phantasms
By Jennifer Bornstein
12.07.2022
The writings of Aotearoa artist, writer and gallerist Giovanni Intra have been collected together for the first time in Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994–2002, spanning his career from K Road in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland through to Los Angeles. Artist Jennifer Bornstein reflects on Giovanni Intra’s life and work on the occasion of this new publication.
Writing
Talk, Protest, Revolt
By Frances Loeffler
06.08.2021
In the 2021 documentary Revolt She Said, filmmaker Louise Lever traces the histories and critical concerns of feminist movements in Aotearoa. Frances Loeffler reflects on the complex questions raised by the film and the impact of recent feminist movements in the art world.
Writing
An interview with Joel Kirkham
By Catherine Dale
22.10.2020
Based in Japan for the past ten years, Joel Kirkham founded Goya Curtain in Tokyo with fellow artist Bjorn Houtman in 2016, and has since been running the gallery. Together with Catherine Dale, he discusses the project space, the exhibitions it has hosted since opening, including Anoushka Akel's recent show (RED LEGS) HOT HEAD, and the future direction for Goya Curtain.
Writing
Making Art in the time of COVID-19
By Chloe Lane
28.05.2020
Two US-based New Zealand artists - Amy Howden-Chapman in New York and Emma McIntyre in Los Angeles - share their experience of the Covid-19 lockdown, how it has impacted their practice and everyday life, and discuss the possible ecological outcomes of the lockdown, including the shifting of art practices to the online world.
Writing
Mana Moana in the UK’s year of Captain Cook
By Ahilapalapa Rands, Jo Walsh
21.09.2018
London-based cultural producer Jo Walsh and artist Ahilapalapa Rands discuss some of the exhibitions and programmes taking place in the UK to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's departure to the Pacific, which also resonates to many as the start of colonisation in Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa. In this conversation piece, Rands and Walsh focus in on the projects they have been involved in, working with The British Library, Whitby Library and other UK institutions, and their efforts to disrupt the major narratives surrounding Cook.
Writing
Learning from Athens (There and Elsewhere)
By Laura Preston, Wystan Curnow
18.12.2017
This is the second part of a correspondence between Laura Preston and Wystan Curnow, in which the two writers' share memories and snapshots of journeys through the art world from 1987 to 2007 and 2017.
Writing
Seeing documenta 14 from the other south
By Jon Bywater
20.10.2017
New Zealand critic Jon Bywater discusses documenta 14 and the work of participating artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Ralph Hotere, Mataaho Collective and Nathan Pohio, marking the first time New Zealand artists have been included in documenta.
Writing
This Model World, Travels to the Edge of Contemporary Art
By Will Gresson
08.12.2016
Will Gresson reviews the book This Model World, Travels to the Edge of Contemporary Art, by Anthony Byrt, published in 2016.
Writing
Directions in Art Publishing during Covid-19
By Freya Copeland
10.09.2021
Reflecting on the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic in the world of independent book publishing, artist, curator and co-founder of Berlin-based Replika Publishing, Freya Copeland writes on the history of artists’ books and the role of independent publishing. She considers the lessons the industry can learn after a year and a half without art book fairs—usually an essential opportunity for publishers to meet collaborators, distributors and other publishers, and how the world of art book publishing might evolve going forward.
Writing
Charting the Constellations of the Oceans, Rivers, and Islands
By Julie Nagam
09.07.2021
As the inaugural Artistic Director for Nuit Blanche Toronto (2020 and 2022), Dr Julie Nagam is interested in forging new relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, in Turtle Island (North America) and internationally, and in the use of digital and new media to express shared experiences of colonialism. Here, Nagam introduces several recent projects undertaken in collaboration with artists and curators from Aotearoa and the new global partnership The Space Between Us, emerging from these cross-cultural exchanges.
Writing
Permanent Migration
By Signe Rose
06.02.2020
In a letter to her husband sculptor Martyn Reynolds, artist Signe Rose reflects on their life in Vienna as parents and artists, having moved to Austria from New Zealand in 2010. She also shares about feeling like a constant tourist, and about the ways in which her art is viewed by both European and New Zealand audiences.
Writing
Moana, Unimagined
By Millie Riddell
08.01.2020
The 16th Istanbul Biennial, titled The Seventh Continent, had a thematic focus on the large garbage patch currently occupying 3.4 million square kilometres of ocean, near Hawaii and Japan. Despite focusing on this area, Pacific artists were not present at the Biennial. Writer Millie Riddell explores the omission of Pacific artists, and what it means to not address or include the people most affected by environmental pollution and climate change.
Writing
Spin Slowly, Fighting Gravity
By Samuel Walsh
04.02.2019
Arts facilitator and producer Samuel Walsh reflects on his residency at Zaratan - Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon, Portugal, where he was able to develop ideas for his own artist-run space, Strange Haven, in Tāmaki Makaurau. Although thousands of miles apart, Walsh and the facilitators of Zaratan discovered their shared joys and struggles of running an art space, and the importance of community in their practice.
Writing
Oceania at the Met
By Maia Nuku
28.11.2018
Maia Nuku, Associate Curator for Oceanic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, talks about the ways in which new curatorial practices are bringing life to the Oceanic collection at the Met. Nuku's collaborative research projects sees new connections between Pacific artists, scholars, cultural practitioners, curators and conservators, as well as Digital and Education teams from within the museum, allowing an activation of objects, and a "complication of institutional narratives."
Writing
Responses to the International Literature Festival Dublin
By Ashleigh Young, Claire Mabey, Kirsty Gunn
26.07.2018
This year, the International Literature Festival Dublin had a special focus on New Zealand writers, inviting Ashleigh Young and Kirsty Gunn to participate, along with other New Zealand literary figures such as Hera Lindsay Bird and Selina Tusitala Marsh. With an introduction by Claire Mabey, Director of LitCrawl Wellington, the writers explore their links to Dublin, the concept of 'female essayists' and their overall impressions of the festival.
Writing
999, Alchemist Trauma Centre / Power Centre
By Jorge De Hoyos
11.07.2018
Berlin-based Jorge de Hoyos first experienced Alexa Wilson's current project 999: Alchemist Trauma Centre / Power Centre when both artists were auditioning for a Masters in Solo Dance Authorship in Berlin. In this part-essay, part-interview, they discuss the work, which is due to be performed in London, Berlin, India and NZ later this year, and exchange their views on feminism and challenging binary perceptions.
Writing
Ka Mua, Ka Muri
By Louise Garrett
28.02.2018
Nathan Pohio’s Raise the anchor, unfurl the sails, set course to the centre of an ever setting sun! was one of three projects by artists from Aotearoa New Zealand presented at documenta 14. Louise Garrett explores Pohio’s presentation in Kassel and invites the artist himself to reflect on his participation and to discuss the work he presented in Athens, documenta’s parallel location in 2017.
Writing
Learning from Athens (There and Elsewhere)
By Laura Preston, Wystan Curnow
18.12.2017
For over a year, Laura Preston was based in Athens to work as associate editor of documenta 14 publications, including South as a State of Mind released in four issues. HUM invited the art writer and editor to reflect on this experience, who in turn, extended the invitation to fellow New Zealander and distinguished art critic, curator and poet Wystan Curnow. What results is a two-part correspondence in which the pair reflect on their imagined and lived experiences of Europe coming from their other south.
Writing
NZ at Venice
By Will Gresson
20.11.2017
London-based New Zealand writer Will Gresson looks back at the way New Zealand has presented itself at the Venice Biennale, since first officially taking part in 2001. In particular, Gresson shares a personal response to the last five national projects and some thoughts on the relevance of cross-national presentations in the future.