95bFM: Artbank

In the vain of "A Journey Around My Room" by Xavier de Maistre (1794), we get through lockdown by taking a sonic journey of people's bedrooms, and hear about particular objests within. In Tour de Bedrooms, Callum Devlin talks about his limited editition Spidey Spice (spiderman) Dorito chip packet. Then we head to Mount Maungnui for Laurie Steer to desrcibe the cookie jar/urn we didn't know we needed, which he is currently crafting. In Wendalin Bakker's bedroom exhibitition, she describes her wooden puzzle which she has never tried to solve for years and years. In part 2 we talk to Steven Park, in his Christchurch room, about his cast what he broke to get it. Then we chat to Stella Corkery about her late father's wood turned shelf and the repressed artists who farm western Southland. Then its up the West Coast to Julia Johnston who describes her house, a converted miners cottage north of Greymouth. More to come Next Week!!!!!!

Lockdown gets us talking to Vanessa Gurung - cartoonist, zine maker and librarian. Her new zine called "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Crushes" is being drawn and compiled at the moment. We also talk to Kate Bartlett about what teachers have been going through in the build up to lockdown, and what might come of the lockdown for dance and drama students. Plus the slightly scant art news :)

Sam, Prairie, and Heidi chat with Owen Connors, artist and curator of the current show at Neo Gracie, Petit a Petit. We discuss building new worlds, queer joy, and how to be an artist in the coming months of virus-related hardship. We are then joined by Tash Keddy, whose show Grind House, closing today, was the debut show at new Auckland gallery, Parasite. We talk about his practice in relation to television, both on and off scree

Prairie, Sam and Heidi talk to Nicola Farquhar about the ecstatic biology of the one and the many. You can check out an example of how this plays out in her painting at Listening, Twitching, currently on at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Next we continue the thread of ecstasy as John Walter joins us and we discuss what happens when a virus walks into a bar. His work in Queer Algorithms, now showing at Gus Fisher Gallery, approaches the biology of HIV with a tragicomedic lens.

Heidi and Prairie catch up with museum curator, Tharron Bloomfield and baber Marnie Pou Te Rata. As a museum curator, perhaps taking more of a view of what a practice and its objects tell us about a culture and our world, we talk about Marnie's barbering practice and the adventures it has led to, including a stint with a business in The Netherlands, as a living artform.

Tom talks to Maree Sheehan, whose show Ōtairongo, is due to open at the refurbished Artspace in March. It will form a new type of audio-portraiture, and a fresh way of representing wāhine Māori. Maree talks about the three women she depicts - Moana Maniapoto, Ramon Te Wake, Te Rita Papesch.

Diewertje Hehewerth is in the studio, talking about her book about artist run spaces in various cities around the world. We also get on the line with Te Haunui Tuna, one of the artists involved with, what is believed to be the largest mural in Aotearoa - in Kirikriroa/Hamilton. 

Ophelia King joins Heidi in the studio, discussing art-life flow and how that has fed into her recent exhibitions including the current 'Teething' at Weasel Gallery, Hamilton. Tom talks to Christoph Dahlhausen, about Westfarbe: Paint vs Colour at Two Rooms Gallery.  And then Alana, Virginia and Marika from Mega Pash Action chat about presence and relationality with regards to their activations going on all week at Artspace's Queer Pavillon, taking place this week in Albert Park.

Heidi has a koorero with the multi-talented Jason Te Mete, play writer and founder of Tuatara Collective,about his play 'Little Black Bitch', returning to Taamaki Makaurau this March. He tells us about workshopping processes and collaborations that go into developing a highly personal kaupapa into a powerful dramaturgy that many people can see themselves in.

Leilani Kake is starting a series of hui where people can practise their reo Maaori without too much formality, lubricating their arero with wine and cheeses, and discussing the artworks at Vunilagi Vou. Te Reo Toitoko, it's called, playing on toi: art, and tautoko: support. Gallery founder, Ema Tavola is also here, chiming in to make sure we've all got the crucial info we need about how to get there.

Next Lesley Dixon tells us about the journeys in and out of collaboration and connection her otherwise practice in solitude in large-scale sand drawing has taken her on, and the many ways in which other people have become involved at times.