Restless
10 March – 21 April
Galleries 1, 2 & 3
Group exhibition by Brett Graham, Lonnie Hutchinson, Junior Ikitule & Dean Kirkwood, John Miller and Parekohai Whakamoe
GUEST CURATOR – Lisa Reihana
Download: Radio NZ interview with Lisa Reihana here
In March 2007 Restless opens the new Gallery at MIC Toi Rerehiko, signaling a new era in its sixteen-year history. Restless is a gritty exhibition showcasing works with a political edge, presented at the Auckland Festival AK07. Curator Lisa Reihana features the work of six sculptural video installation artists. MIC approached internationally acclaimed artist Lisa Reihana to curate its inaugural exhibition. Lisa Reihana has played a leading role in the development of film and multimedia art in Aotearoa. She was a founding member of MIC in 1991.
The Restless‘ artists impress upon us where we come from by unearthing histories that inform our contemporary reality. The viewer will leave with much to consider and provocative reasons to return.
Brett Graham’s work Kainga Tahi Kainga Rua ‘First Home, Second Home’ is
a simple yet potent reminder of the devastating effects mining unleashes
on communities. Graham explores the destruction of Banaba Island by
colonialism and through the large scale excavation of phosphate. Large metal forms with projections illuminating their rusty surfaces recall the abandoned industrial machinery still lying in Banaba today.
John Miller’s Tour Scrums: Protesting Black and Blue explores one of New Zealand’s darkest moments: the 1981 Springbok Tour. His powerful photographs record the landscape, the people and the mayhem. He revisits Land of the Wrong White Crowd (1985). Miller expands the field of vision underscored by a soundtrack of media newscasts, each element sharply focusing on a nation divided. These
sights and sounds emphasize what tore us apart, giving us time to reflect on our nation then and today.
Bringing the outside inside, Parekohai Whakamoe’s There He Is takes place in a curious forest, a space for imagining. Sitting amongst trees the viewer hears a young man recount tales as an animation unfolds. He speaks of the historical figures and spiritual leaders who have influenced Tuhoe consciousness – Jesus Christ and a Presbyterian Missionary; Te Kooti Arikirangi and Erueti Tamaikoha, Whakamoe’s great-grandfather. There He Is explores the relationship between identity and place – actual, mythical or both?
Junior Ikitule and Dean Kirkwood’s installation Laughing My Fucken Head Off presents a very challenging premise. Two monitors face each and can be seen to represent ‘white/pakeha/half caste’ and ‘black /indigenous/ original’ as cultures of opposition. The audience, caught in the cross fire, is obliged to consider how language and behaviour affects the psyche. This raw, edgy collaboration focuses on identity, racism and violence. With their South Auckland connections, Ikitule and Kirkwood are acutely aware of the stereotypes associated with Otara where it was filmed. In their work cultural hierarchies are fluid and interchangeable.
Lonnie Hutchinson leads us through an unsettling scenario in She could taste the salt on her lips. Glimpsed behind a curtain, a naked haired woman is held captive; we hear water slapping against a wooden boat, and keening bird cries in the distance. Hutchinson exposes a bleak history of sexual exploitation, imagining the incarceration of Island women in the holds of ships. Bawdy sea tales and exotic locations have contributed to the stereotypes of wanton Polynesian beauties. Hutchinson brings a dignity to these unnamed and lost women: avoiding our gaze is their resistance.
Lisa Reihana has an impressive exhibition record representing New Zealand in Paradise Now? at the Asia Society Museum, New York; the 2000 Sydney Biennale; the Noumea Biennale in 2002; and the Asia Pacific Triennial in 1996 and 2003.
Brett Graham’s work has been included in major national and international exhibitions including the 2006 Sydney Biennale, MCA, Sydney; Purangiaho “Seeing Clearly”, Auckland Art Gallery; Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance, City Gallery, Wellington; Prospect 2001, City Gallery, Wellington; Asia Pacific Triennial 1996, Queensland Art Gallery. He has major commissions installed at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia; Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand; and University of Auckland.
Since the 1970s, John Miller has consistently photographed all the important political movements affecting Maori. His interest in environmental issues has seen his work published in Greenpeace literature; he has documented the Labour movement and its support by Maori and attended many Land Rights Hui throughout Aotearoa. In 2003 the New Zealand Peace Council presented Miller with a Media Peace Award for Lifetime Achievement for Documentary Photography.
Parekohai Whakamoe’s shows include Transformers, Gertrude Contemporary Art Gallery, Melbourne 2000; Dark Communion at OM Gallery, Melbourne, 2001; Storing Up at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne 2001 and Kiosk Project, Physics Rooms, Christchurch, 2002. There He Is first featured in “New O4″ at ACCA, Melbourne 2004.
Junior Ikitule and Dean Kirkwood are both recent graduates of the Moving Image Department at Manakau Institute of Technology.
Lonnie Hutchinson is a multimedia artist working in the fields of painting, sculpture, installation, performance and moving image. She has a background in 3D & Spatial Design from Unitec and Textile Printing, AUT. Hutchinson was the first female recipient of Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies Residency, University of Canterbury, 2000. She undertook an Indigenous Residency at Banff Media Art Centre, Alberta, Canada 2003.
