MAKING SPACE: The Social

The Artists

Adrienne Millwood graduated BFA (1st class Hons) in painting from the University of Canterbury in 2012. She is also a qualified teacher with a degree in Anthropology. Focusing on ideas around time through the intersection between different mediums, mainly photography and painting, she also works with installation and interractive projects. Her work is often layered and uses found materials; time, memory and human traces are fundamental.

Adrienne relocated to Wellington mid 2016, which saw her participating in her new project – Wellington Housesitting Art Residency. Living in 12 houses in 7 months provided the chance to further explore ideas of longing, and notions around presence and absence.

Adrienne has exhibited in New Zealand, Australia and Japan, with her work held in private and public collections, including the University of Canterbury and James Wallace Trust Collection. This will be her 4th time engaging with The Social Collective in making and presenting new work. Adrienne is now based in Awakairangi (Lower Hutt).

Andy Lukey is a Christchurch based photographic artist who has documented the inner city over the last 7 years. “Mordor” is part of an ongoing series of his “City of Dust” works dealing with building deconstructions.

Christchurch based artist Audrey Baldwin’s practice is predominantly performance based and centres around the body as a fraught space of constant contention. She investigates identity, power and control narratives, seeking to destabilise public/private, abject/erotic and subject/object binaries. Often utilising everyday actions and routines, Audrey seeks to reframe these actions in an absurd or ritualistic manner.

Her work has been presented in galleries and as part of festivals around New Zealand as well as in Zimbabwe, Japan and India. 2016 saw her attend Morni Hills Performance Art Biennial in India alongside other performance artists from around the globe.

Since 2010, Audrey has been performing and creating interventions and events in and around the Christchurch CBD, through her roles as both artist and arts event manager/co-ordinator for The Social artist collective and curator for First Thursdays Chch

Callum Devlin is an artist based in Te-Whanganui-a-tara, Aotearoa. In 2015 Callum graduated with a BFA(Hons) from Massey University College of Creative Arts. In 2016 Callum founded MEANWHILE project space, with fellow Massey graduates Jesse Bowling and Jordana Bragg. Callum is currently interested in the anxiety surrounding nationalism within post-colonial countries. Also YouTube, flags and time travel. He works predominantly with found objects, film, social media and performance.

Carrot Boy: I am inspired by found objects and urban decay. I attempt to bring out beauty from the unwanted and forgotten. With an interest in the weird and wonderful, I am currently exploring visual repetition with the use of the symbol of a carrot. I am endeavouring to lead a trail for my audience towards positive thinking using a ‘carrot and stick approach’. Life is about love and peace. Bomb Carrots, Not Countries.

Clara Wells: I am a motion artist recently returned to my hometown of Christchurch. I graduated with my Master of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 2015 before moving to Hamilton, where I have been living for the last two years. My work is primarily concerned with motion; I am interested in experimental animation, sound art and the ways these can be used to depict motion (or abstractions of motion) in various forms.

At the moment I am interested in uses of surrealist drawing techniques in animation as a way to document physical structures, such as pavements, and as a way to capture raw experiences, be they physical, psychological or abstract.

Cushla Donaldson is an Elam School of Fine Arts graduate and gained an MFA from Goldsmiths College, London in 2007, supported by the Anne Reid scholarship from the University of Auckland. Donaldson is interested in the social, economic and historical functioning and narratives of contemporary markets, and the moments of absurd logic which, in fact, provide the potential for seemingly autonomous action. She has exhibited regularly in both New Zealand and Europe; recent solo exhibitions include Feminine Touches at Ferari Gallery, Auckland, 2012 and Cushla Donaldson & Fisher and Paykel present The Truth at 30upstairs Gallery, Wellington, 2013, Cushla Donaldson w/ Becks and guests- Supergroup/ with screening of Laure Provost’s film “The Wanderer (Betty Drunk)” 2014, the Headlands Sculpture in the Gulf 2015 (Premier Prize Awarded for sculpture “The Precariats”) and her most recent solo exhibition “The Fairy Falls” curated by Ioana Gordon-Smith at Te Uru Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau. She was also producer for Artbank bFM Radio Show 20015-16.

Dee Chisholm has a passion regarding Papatūānuku, how respect can look, feel, sound and taste, specifically under governmental policy.
The clothing is constructed from one person’s waste over a month, which attempts to capture “an act that is elegant and abject, seductive and antagonistic, assertive and subservient” (Reckitt, 2013, p. 134).

Erena Moses is the mother of two children, her art is her way of expressing her struggles with the family court and the corruption and alienation of the pakeha bureaucratic system. She thinks of herself more of an activist than an artist, but has found art to be an effective and positive way of communicating.

Gaby Montejo approaches art through photo, music, interviews, and temporary installation often with performative actions.  Gaby’s work explores democracy and hierarchy in a way where the finished work is often consumed or destroyed during the process of making. Whilst exhibiting internationally, Gaby stays pivotal in the social initiatives and collaborative interventions of Christchurch and is a key member of the collective The Social. Born to Cuban parents, Gaby attended art school in Australia and America and moved to Christchurch in 2006.

Exhibitions and works include The Pie Shop Surveillance Project for Open Workshop, XCHC, 2016;  National Contemporary Art Awards, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, 2015; Pay for the Printer, Triple Major, Shanghai, 2015; Milk Fight, 100 Peterborough Street, Christchurch, 2014; OPP, Chambers, Christchurch, 2013; Bring A Plate, Performance Arcade, Wellington, 2013; Goat in a Bikini, None Gallery, Dunedin, 2012;  The Art of Photography, San Diego Art Institute, California, 2012; New Zealand Sculpture OnShore, Auckland, 2012;  Shared Lines, Sendai Mediatheque, Japan, 2012;  Poltergeist, White Elephant Arts, Melbourne, 2011; and …Nah It’s Only Gaby, ABC, Christchurch, 2011.

Gemma Stratton graduated from Ilam in 2007, majoring in sculpture. Her practice is a tangle of colours, encounters and endearing occasions. An important spanner in her works is long time collaborator Mirabel Oliver, a spinner of many creative plates.

Ivan Lupi (born 1972, Ferrara, Italy). Masters in Queer Studies in Arts and Culture from the Birmingham University. Since 2001 Lupi has been an active member of the collective Amae with which he has taken part in various collaborations and exhibitions in China, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Lithuania, United Kingdom. The most recent events: ‘The Voice and the Lens’ – Whitechapel Art Gallery (London 2014), ‘The Slip of the tongue’ – Palazzo Grassi Punta della Dogana (Venice 2015), ‘Transformations’ by LiVEART.US – Queens Museum (New York 2016), ‘Experimenting with a wunderkammer of vanitas’ – MACT/CACT Contemporary Art Ticino (Bellinzona 2016).

Jason Ware: My art practice is multidisciplinary; I create sculpture and collages but also photography, sound and short films. I used to be apolitical but the recent goings on in the world have been changing my focus somewhat. My work is inspired by natural and man-made phenomena, as well as metaphysical concerns. My curiosity lies within the form-function, function-form question. How can an object display its purpose, if we don’t recognise it, can I create new objects that impart a meaning? I am also looking at the boundaries of perception and interpretation. When do we see an object and when do we comprehend it? Do we need to understand in the conventional sense? Where does the meaning lie? I am fascinated by the idea of an object that can express practical and conceptual function, through its visual and tactile features – be they mechanical or otherwise. My drive is to develop these inchoate problems. Often emerging as clear images in my subconscious, my work exhibits surreal beginnings; immanent thoughts with the potential to cause effects outside the mind. Ideas appear as abstract thoughts from various starting points, and then evolve through drawings, collages, maquettes and material trials. Through rational and intuitive reckoning, I construct prototypes – much like an engineer – in response to my experiences and corresponding ideas.

My material choices are an instinctive and playful process, made with consideration of their suitability for the concept but they also aid in decision making whilst constructing. I use various conventional materials such as wood, metal, paper, found objects but have also used soil and plant fibre. I prefer to use ecologically sound methods and I recycle materials where possible, these materials are rejuvenated and can provide temporal qualities such as patinas. My practice is process based; I prefer traces of its evolution to be a part of the texture. I think of sculpture as comprising of an interdependent relationship between interior and exterior structures. I engage with the materials of the two structures, exploring the interaction between them and the spaces they delineate. My works are propositions suggesting possibilities; this is particularly evident in my collages. My aim is to present perplexing art works, with which the viewer can then experience an engagement. I succeed when I convey a sense of a process and purpose through work in a provocative manner.

Originally trained as an engineering surveyor, I am a recent graduate of the University Of Canterbury School Of Fine Arts majoring in sculpture. I also practice other art forms such as collage, photography, film and sound. My work has appeared in a number of solo and group shows in Christchurch and abroad.

Jordana Bragg is a contemporary multidisciplinary artist based in Wellington, Aotearoa. Their writing, curation, performance based video and photographic observations have reached national acclaim, as well as international success in both Europe and Australia. Bragg is co-founder of two Artist Run Initiatives; MEANWHILE (Wellington, NZ) and Friends are Artists / Freunde sind Künstler (Leipzig, Germany); working continuously to progress contemporary notions of inclusion fluidity, identity and gender performativity.

Julia Harvie graduated from UNITEC in 2003 with a BPSA in Contemporary Dance. Julia’s particular focus is on collaboration, live music and improvisation. She was awarded the Tup Lang Scholarship as the CNZ Emerging Choreographer of 2008. Her work has toured throughout New Zealand and has been presented in Taiwan and Australia. Julia studied with Magpie Music Dance in Amsterdam and was selected for the WDA Choreographer Project in Brisbane with Lloyd Newsom (DV8). She has been awarded Most Outstanding Performer of the NZ Fringe, Best Dance at the Dunedin Fringe and NZ Best Female Contemporary Dancer in 2008. Julia has worked for acclaimed artists such as, Michael Parmenter, Shona McCullagh, Kristian Larsen, Zoe Scofield, Riki von Falken, Pichet, Raewyn Hill, Malia Johnston, Oliver Driver, Andrew and Sarah Foster-Sproull, Emma Willis and Leila Adu.

Julia Holden is an independent artist currently based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Julia as always experimented with modes of representation and developing new audiences for the visual arts, her attention is now keenly focused on encouraging public interaction through innovative relational practices. She has developed strategies for personal and collaborative painting centered upon outcomes that encompass new possibilities for audience participation in artistic processes that encourage connections within communities, well being and wider social engagement.

Following a successful film and television career, Julia Holden gained BFA from Elam, School of Fine Arts (NZ) 2007 and MFA by Research at Monash University, Melbourne (AU) 2011. During her

time in Australia, Holden was a finalist in the national emerging-artist prize The Churchie 2011, exhibited in SafARI 2012, and was a finalist in The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2011 & 2012. Since moving to post-earthquake Christchurch in 2012, Holden has directly engaged with rebuild projects and was guest Lecturer at Ilam School of Fine Arts.

Leafa Wilson is an accomplished artist, curator and writer based in Waikato, New Zealand. Her commitment to the arts spans twenty-eight years where she has become a pioneer for curatorial practices. In 2004, Wilson was appointed the role of Curator of Art at Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, making her the first person of Pacific descent to hold an institutional role as an art curator. Since then, Wilson has diversified the museum collection and developed exhibitions with leading New Zealand and International artists including Suji Park: Not Very So 2013; the exhibition series Letters to the Ancestors: Contemporary Indigenous Art from Aotearoa and the Pacific 2005; and Dolly Mix (W) Rapper 2002.

As an artist, Wilson is revered for her experimental performances and multi-media installations. She has often worked under the nom de guerre Leafa Wilson a.k.a Olga Krause, a name that queries the boundaries of indigenous and Western ideologies and re-colonising her own name with her black body . Her diverse interests have resulted in unique collaborations and projects such as the art zine Pre/Post Rapture; the performance work Anthro. 101 with Dr. Nichola Harcourt and Faith Wilson; Hedwig and George (with Georgina Watson) and ongoing collaboration with her daughter, writer and poet, Faith Saufo’i Wilson. Her musical interests are a blend of performance art and music with her art band Bushwig as well as  musical projects with Alex Mustard (of Lookie Loos) band,The Jansens and playing tenor horn for the Monster Orkestra under bohemian composer and conductor, Justine Francis. Leafa Wilson a.k.a Olga Krause has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and held artist residencies at the University of Queensland Brisbane in 2006 and the Burke Museum, Washington D.C. in 2005.

Liv Worsnop graduated from Ilam School of Fine Arts with a BFA in 2012, majoring in Sculpture and she has thus pursued a cross disciplinary practice. Through the moving, shifting and manipulation of found detritus Liv investigates the way we as energetic beings exist within the physical world. This work has culminated in various exhibitions including The Periphery State held at the Physics Room in 2014.

Another thread of her practice has operated under the title Plant Gang and has looked to natures reaction within the post quake Christchurch landscape. Projects have included a catalogue of wild plants growing in the central city, a zen garden constructed of materials found on site and various guerrilla gardens. Through the invitation to the general public to be involved, this ongoing project has traversed environmental and social based relationships and reactions to postquake Christchurch.

Lucy Matthew‘s practice almost always involves other humans. with an aim to provide new experiences that foster connection, a new perspective and some introspection about human relations. Sometimes they are light and simple gestures and sometimes more pointed and political but all consider and take to heart the human condition. Lucy Matthews is a Department of Art Relations and Therapy clinician, a graduate of Ilam school of fine arts, a mum, a psychotherapists and someone who is generally intrigued by the human experience.Lucy will be working in the studio space.

Whangarei born Christchurch based artist Mandy Cherry Joass graduated from the University of Canterbury with a BFA in sculpture in 2015. Her full time art practice also includes painting, printing, and illustration.

She is using raranga (weaving) as a metaphor to explore themes relating to postcolonial identity The oppositional direction of warp and weft combine individual strands to create a fabric, larger and stronger than the separate elements.

Following in the footsteps of her Kuia, Cherry Joass and great Kuia Cecily Ruby Mcmanus, Joass seeks to preserve and perpetuate all things Matarangi Māori in an inclusive and lighthearted way.

Mark Harvey is an Aotearoa/New Zealand-based artist mostly working in performance and video drawing on political, psychological and social approaches and physical endurance. He brings to his practice a focus on social justice often and notions of productive idiocy and has training in contemporary dance, visual arts, psychology and community facilitation.

Some of the galleries related events he has presented in, include: The 55thVenice Biennale for Visual Arts (2013), the New Zealand Festival of the Arts (2012), Umeå Art Museum, (Sweden, 2016), the Trendheim Kunstmuseum (2012), the New Performance Turku Festival (Finland, 2014 and 2016), Te Uru gallery (Auckland, 2016), Laznia Contemporary Art centre (Gdansk, Poland, 2015), Prague Quadrennial (201 5), Hitparaden (Copenhagen, 2014), Te Tuhi Gallery (Auckland, 2012, 2014 and 2016), Window (Auckland, 2008), the Govett Brewster Art Gallery (Taranaki, NZ, 2006), Gallery ZET (Amsterdam, 2011), Blue Oyster (Dunedin, 2009), Auckland Festival of the Arts (2005 and 2015), Physicsroom Contemporary Artspace (Christchurch, 2002 and 2006), City Gallery  (Wellington, 2005),  Canary (Auckland, 2005) and Enjoy Gallery (Wellington, 2003). His writing has also been published in a range of publications such as the UK Performance Research Journal (2006 and 2013) and the South Project (2013). Harvey is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at The University of Auckland and has a PhD from AUT University related practice. He has recently published a book on a sample of 14 years of his practice titled Play Book (Index Design and Publishing).

Originally from Kirikiriroa, Matthew Joils is a multidisciplinary artist based in Otautahi. Graduating from Ilam in 2016 with a major in film making, his work includes installation incorporating poetry and new media, as well as forays into painting, pottery, and gardening as art practice.

Matt Joils is drawn to the natural world with a sense of wonder. He believes that many pertinent questions of the future find answers in learning from the natural world. Drawing inspiration from such diverse areas as human geography, life sciences, architecture, poetry, and his own lived experience, Matt seeks to spark meaningful culture change. Abstracted activism.

Co-curator of Student Series 2016- Ilam Campus Gallery
Waiting- The Casting Room
Student series 2014

Numangatini Mackenzie: Interdisciplinary artist Numangatini Mackenzie works in graf, tatau and mixed media installation. His practice centres on the exploration of urban space and the processes of building connections to his Pacific heritage and people. His research engages with literature on Oceanic art, museum collections as well as collaborations with living practitioners of art forms ranging from tatau, painting and spoken word to voyaging/navigation and street art. Numa often responds to these experiences and sites of investigation through large public graf installations, performance and printmaking. He is actively involved in cultural heritage projects, performative acti.VA.tions, research and community development in New Zealand, where he is now based, and the Cook Islands.

Numa was born in Canada where his hunger to understand his culture grew, which prompted him to move the Cook Islands in 2009. His move gave Numa the opportunity to grow family ties and his understanding of cultural arts like tapa, tatau and voyaging.

In 2011 Numa was honoured to participate in the Pacific Voyagers “Te Mana O Te Moana“ Voyage, sailing throughout the Pacific on Marumaru Atua – the Cook Island double hulled vaka/canoe that accompanied six other canoes from across the Pacific. The mission of the expedition was to use the wisdom of the ancestors, combined with modern science, to propel the Pacific into a more sustainable future. Recognizing the pacific ocean as a living entity in need of protection and to re-awaken the next generation with cultural values through the traditions of voyaging.

The voyage took him across the pacific to the Solomon Islands to participate in the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts. The experience exponentially grew his Polynesian family, cementing his belief of the unmatched connections between Pacific peoples and allowed him to share his artwork throughout the Pacific.

This voyage, like many since then, has given Numa the knowledge to stand in the worlds largest Polynesian city with community, has exhibited work in Canada, The Cook Islands New Zealand and Australia.
He now resides in Auckland New Zealand

Olivia Isabel-Smith has completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, majoring in Painting. She resides in Lyttelton, living and working on my art practice in a garage space. Most of her interest is in still life painting, sculpture and exploring objects in relation to the body and the environment.

She uses forms drawn from the natural and man-made worlds as sources of inspiration. The natural elements include fleshy tones, found objects and sculptural moulds, while a man-made and spiritual contrast is suggested in the use of white or blank space. Still life is treated as a point of departure, toward a variety of works that incorporate photo release methods, water colours and linear elements, realised within a limited colour palette.

Rubee Prattley-Jones resides in Christchurch and has recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at The University of Canterbury. Whether it’s the studio, gallery or the natural world, Rubees practice responds to her immediate surroundings. Drawing attention to the mundane, she pays tribute to accumulations and traces that collect all around us. Her site specific practice stems from a great sense of wonder and appreciation for the earth. Making use of a variety of media, her sculptural and installation work include found and hand-made objects. Rubee has exhibited at CORNER Gallery in Auckland (2016) and during her time at University exhibited in various solo and group shows, including the Student Series at SOFA Gallery (2016).

Scrap Princess I make things out of things. Break and mutate into sorcery fetish, but a blind one , absent of mythology . Animals out of trash. Music out of noise. I’ve also made instruments, masks, full body stilt costumes, rotating sets. For myself , for audiences, for unintended audiences, for passers-by and attendees. In Public Space, Private Space, and Secret Space.
Fungal building process: both an eating , an attack on environment , and recycling/theft.

Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin , Melbourne , Dunedin , Wellington, Christchurch again. I move a lot.

Tao Wells, figure head of Wells Group PPR, promotes; “everything is art and everyone is an artist. The question being, therefore, ‘what is it the art of? Capitalism”. In 2017 Wells joined a Civil Union Co-op with Laura Wells and is currently based in Te Waipounamu.

Tony Scanlan has been drawing and painting for a number of years, He studied print making as a mature student at Canterbury University and has recently completed a degree in Psychology.

Other contributing artists:

Sandrine Castel, Robert Baker, Mirabel Oliver, Matt Ward, Mark Catley, Brie Sherow, Alex Wootton, Aleshia Edens