CIRCUIT CAST

How do we fill in the blanks of our own histories? This week on the podcast we speak with Mairi Gunn about moving from a career in the film industry to working in contemporary art. Speaking to host Mark Amery at the Pah Homestead we hear the backstory of her installation Common Ground, which looks at New Zealand Māori and Scottish Highlanders and their relationships to the land of their ancestors. In this wide-ranging conversation Mairi discusses working as a woman in the film industry, relational art, Merata Mita, public funding and having difficult conversations.

“Is it possible for the Romantic to exceed the rational without eliminating it?” Cushla Donaldson talks Mark Amery through the exhibition The Fairy Falls at Te Uru Waitakere, featuring the premiere of a new film work documenting the mythical 1973 performance by Black Sabbath at The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival.

"How does entanglement in the technical circuits of ‘progress’ shape not just dreams, but the capacity to dream?" In this pod guests Judy Darragh and Scott Hamilton join Mark Amery to discuss Dream Dialects, an exhibition by British artist Jem Noble recently installed at Te Tuhi, Auckland, which responds to the New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs (1977), directed by Roger Donaldson, and to the novel Smith’s Dream (1971), by C. K. Stead, on which the film is based. Both the novel and film tell a fictional tale of an insidious authoritarian power supplanting liberal democracy under familiar mantras of economic crisis and national security. Dream Dialects takes the contemporary resonance of this story as a starting point to consider the media through which narratives circulate and how they affect the nature of subjectivity and its capacity for political action.

“How does your native soul inform your work?” This week on the podcast, host Mark Amery sits down with broadcasting legend Tainui Stephens at the launch of the 2017 Māoriland Film Festival, to discuss indigenous modes of exchange and distribution.

Do you make art? What does it smell like? Does it fit in a paddling pool? Our first pod of 2017 sees Mark Amery in conversation with RIFF RAFF aka Li-Ming Hu and Daphne Simons, who discuss their Enjoy Gallery summer residency and forthcoming Telethon, which seeks to amass a 'stupendously large' collection of contemporary art which will be offered as a gift to the Chartwell Art Trust. Mark Amery attempts to unpick the layers beyond the project which offers no parameters for donations, except that the giver deems the work to be 'art'.

Plus! A new CIRCUIT CAST theme tune by HEAT PUMP.

How do we create indigenous spaces in our institutions? Our 2016 end of year pod took place immediately after a wānanga on curating indigenous art at Takapūwāhia Marae and Pātaka Art + Museum, and a subsequent panel at City Gallery Wellington. Pod guests Nina Tonga, Martin Patrick and Nathan Pohio discuss questions of making space with host Mark Amery. All this plus highlights of 2016 - Best emerging artist? Best show? And looking towards the future, where do artists want to situate their art and why?

Image: Detail from Ladies (2016) Chris Ulutupu

Apologies for the technical issues in this podcast, which were a product of a) technical failure and b) the crazy idea to situate this conversation in a bar pre-Xmas. Yes, we know.

Location!… location? Mike Heynes' new commission for Masons Screen addresses one of the most urgent issues for many New Zealanders, housing affordablity. Host Mark Amery talks to Heynes about responding to current events, and how technology enables political action. As Masons Screen approaches its' first anniversary Mark Amery also talks to CIRCUIT Director Mark Williams about the screens site in the downtown business district, opposite a fashion school.

Our thanks to Eve Armstrong and Wellington City Council.

Mark Williams 0-4:00 mins

Mike Heynes 4:00-12:00 mins

How do we attribute value? On the 50th anniversary of the Frances Hodgkins residency in Dunedin 2015 fellow John Ward Knox talks to Mark Amery about art economies, human remains and staying on in the South to examine his “inner gothic cathedral”.

Why start a gallery in 2017? Who needs a physical space? Artists Jordana Bragg and Callum Devlin talk about MEANWHILE, one of a handful of recently established artist-run spaces in Wellington filling a void in the post-art school vacuum.

“...avoid the Pakeha books on Maori mythology … take a look in the kids’ section instead.” How to respond to a place that is not your own? Hong Kong artist Josette Chiang talks to Mark Amery about her recent residency in Wellington and the subsequent installation at Toi Poneke Gallery 'Coastline Paradox', which presents various systems of measure applied to Wellington's landscape.

Coastline Paradox was completed during Josette's recent residency in Wellington as part of the Wellington Asia Residency Exchange programme with the support of Wellington City Council, Asia New Zealand Foundation and CIRCUIT.