Li Si Rong and Jay Juhye Kang
Unfinished Intersection

24 July – 17 August 2024

Unfinished Intersection is a duo solo exhibition presented by Jay Juhye Kang and Li Si Rong exploring the intersections and unfinished aspects of various situations in everyday life through their respective perspectives. 

The exhibition displays the delicate surreal style of Si Rong and Juhye’s rugged realism, creating a strong sense of contrast within the same space. This juxtaposition is intended to echo the unpredictable and temporary nature of these processes, which are characterised by the rapid interplay of roughness, fragility, and chaos. It also evokes delicate emotions and sensations from our subconscious. 

In the exhibition, Jay explores the aesthetic of ‘imperfection and unfinishedness’ through her installations and paintings. The installation questions the very essence of whether ‘completion’ is defined by achieving a “flawless and perfect” state or by fully realising the artist’s intention. Jay aims to intertwine these concepts in a relatable and everyday manner. She seeks to convey the tension and intimacy between individuals, as well as the obscurity and clarity found in everyday lives through the object-making process. 

Imperfection is closely tied to the human condition, as people make mistakes, are full of flaws, and are vulnerable. 

Messy and overlapped lines, unidentifiable figures, and blank spaces convey the ephemeral, fragile, and vulnerable moments of everyday life. These flaws are stitched and stacked with various materials through a repetitive and continual act to ‘undo’ mistakes, which, although creating more crevices, also form new narratives and perspectives. This process, while inherently fragile and ephemeral, authentically represents our existence and what sustains us in this life. 

The narratives that imperfect crevices and flaws bring, the existence of undefined potential for further stories, and varied paths open to interpretation rather than seeking a clear answer, convey her perception of imperfection.

Si Rong draws from the fundamental theory of fractal proposed by the French-American mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot to organise and interpret various chaotic intersections in daily life. Fractals typically exhibit dimensions that are called “Fractal Dimension”, which aren’t whole numbers, determined by the ruggedness, irregularity, and fracturing of objects. Fractals are everywhere: from the human body—where major arteries branch into smaller ones and small arteries branch into capillaries—to natural phenomena such as coastlines, tree trunks and branches, snowflakes, and lightning. 

We are fractals, we exist within fractals. 

Si Rong endeavours to incorporate these concepts of fractals simplified into integer dimensions of one, two, and three into their exhibition, using an sim-pler perspective to organise everyday life. She begins by organising daily chaos from a linear, one-dimensional perspective. Threading torn calendar pages back together with fine lines in reverse as a retrospective of daily life. The two-dimensional exploration revolves around triangles in planar paintings. It features fractal imagery with mountainous triangles and organic shapes, abstractly simplifying and rearranging similar scenes through repetition. In the three-dimensional space, leveraging the self-similarity and self-imitating characteristics of fractals, everyday objects are simplified and recreated, presenting a state of complexity characterised by variability.

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Florence Wild
Droopy time

24 July – 17 August 2024

‘The tides never wash the sand or make it firm. When I tried to make a sandcastle, the sand would just run away through my fingers. It was too dry to hold together. And even if I poured sea water over it, the sun would dry it up at once.’
– Iris Murdoch, The Sandcastle

Droopy time brings together recent sculptures that explore forms of time, distance, and acts of leaving and returning.

The sculptures are made from a curious assortment of materials: flamboyant vintage ties filled with rice, tissue paper forms found inside new shoes, volcanic sand small rodents bathe in, guitar strings played by a partner, discarded piano keys and architectural drawing tubes.

In another act of returning, Droopy time is accompanied with a text by Ash Kilmartin, found here.
In 2008, Florence and Ash presented Modern Love, a duo show at then Rm 103.

Florence Wild left Auckland in 2010 and is living in Stockholm, Sweden. Recent exhibitions include At Sea, Alta Art Space, Malmö, Temporary Secretary with Milli Jannides, Temporary Secretary, Stockholm, Local Haunts, Galleri ID:I, Stockholm. She runs the exhibition space Temporary Secretary in Stockholm and regularly writes texts for other artists.

With support from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Darryl Chin, Kristin Li, Kyung Ho Min, Ford Jones and Qianye Lin
Digital Garden

19 June – 13 July 2024

Digital Garden is a multimedia installation that examines our relationship with technology, considering its potential for both creativity and conservation. The installation operates through a web-based platform that encourages participants to share memories with the garden. In response, the garden reimagines these memories, creating a unique interactive experience.

The installation’s physical component is built from repurposed electronic waste and technology acquired through end-of-life streams. As visitors traverse the fabricated landscape, they encounter a mix of old and new, organic and artificial elements. This juxtaposition prompts reflections on our consumption patterns, the pace of technological change, and the transient nature of technological innovations. Through this exploration, Digital Garden addresses themes of globalisation, obsolescence, and the intersection of past and future technologies.

Digital Garden is a collaborative effort involving a team of artists and technologists. The creative team includes Darryl Chin, Kristin Li, and Kyung Ho Min, with development by Ford Jones and Qianye Lin.

Images by Antje Barke

Nicholas Males
End User

19 June – 13 July 2024

Please wait patiently for the system to fail.

End User is an amalgamation of the crude and seemingly obsolete infrastructure that our IT¹ departments have become familiar with and are built upon. This unknown, patchwork structure merges lines between that of server closets, back rooms, and the corporate desk, bringing them together in a seemingly erroneous arrangement. However, unlike those locations, there exists a general acknowledgment of the purpose those spaces fulfill, even if we find ourselves puzzled by what that purpose might be.

End User refers to the people who will ultimately use the product but are not necessarily the customers of the company buying said product. They are, however, typically employees of the customer. These users often come to understand how defunct their IT¹ systems are through its usage alone; this work discusses the relationship between that of the end user and these systems, or lack thereof.

Anticipation is often a large factor within IT¹ organizations and consequently within this work there is a tangible sense of foreboding. This ominous tone is veiled by the use of deceptively playful GUI’s², and a multitude of presumably defunct corded phones repeating continuously overlapping “hold” music. Colourful GUI’s² are displayed adjacent to those of the terminal scripts that may run them, unveiling their inner workings, or possibly something else entirely. There is a pessimistic expectation that this will all come to a screaming halt; that the systems and the ancient hardware that runs them will fail.

Nicholas Males is an installation artist born and raised in Te Waiharakeke, now working and living in Tāmaki Makaurau. In 2021, Nicholas completed a Masters in Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts. Males’ installations merge the line between the domestic and corporate worlds, turning both upside down and creating familiar spaces that seemingly lack any real purpose. His practice is an ongoing observation and contemplation of the objects in the world around us, as well as his own attempts to extract meaning and understanding in the dynamic coexistence between object, dweller/viewer and space.

Males enjoys using seemingly outdated or defunct technology in his work, as often these found objects have built-in preconceptions relating to their function. Through recontextualisation, there is a sense of salvation created for these once purpose-built objects. The space and viewer form a different narrative with previously mundane things, through Males’ unusual combinations. Recent exhibitions include ‘Risk of Bliss’ at MEANWHILE Gallery (2023), ‘Mimicry’ at Depot Artspace (2023), ‘You May Rest Here’ at Satchi&Satchi&Satchi (2022) and ‘Downside Up’ at Studio One Toi Tū (2021)

Special thanks to Theolonius Kelly for the Instrumental Hold Music and Ryan Brown for the various scripts.

1. IT – Information Technology
2. GUI – Graphical User Interface

Images by Antje Barke

Amanda Mackenzie
Threads

15 May – 8 June 2024

Threads considers the material trajectories of things. With the performativity of the materials guiding their construction, the elements of this installation indicate the process of their making and their past life.

Threading, knotting, and twisting of fibres were among the oldest of human arts from which the technologies of both textiles and building are derived. A network of flexible lines, these things we live with, catch and reflect our stories.

How does each independent strand interact with the others to become this whole entity? Where does each bit come from? How did it get there? Who put it together? Tracing these fibres back to what they were like before they were joined up and joined with the stuff that makes them a thing is to acknowledge them as dynamic and ever changing.

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Louisa Afoa
Pineapple Pie On My Mind

15 May – 8 June 2024

“From the beginning of my art practice I have always been interested in the idea of adding to the archive, memory and the everyday. Holding onto a piece of time through photography so it wasn’t forgotten was important to me, because who is going to document our community if we don’t? I often think of the words of Bell Hooks in relation to the beauty of the everyday, when she said “Beauty can be and it’s present in our lives irrespective of our class status. Learning to see and appreciate the presence of Beauty is an act of resistance in a culture of domination that recognises the production of pervasive feeling of lack, both material and spiritual, as a useful colonisation strategy.”

As I’ve aged and witnessed cherished leaders of our aiga pass away, I’ve become hyper aware of my own mothers health problems and what would be lost if we were to lose her suddenly. The kitchen has always been her domain and although I would be there with her peeling ingredients, laughing with siblings during the hustle and bustle of family get togethers, I never retained the knowledge of how to make the recipes because I never imagined a life without my mum. My mum has always showed her love by cooking. As a Pakeha woman who raised Samoan children, she was taught how to make staple island food by my great Aunt and Uncle who sponsored my dad to come live in Aotearoa in the 70s.”

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Beth Dawson, Charlotte Parallel and val smith
Invisible Neighbours

10 April – 4 May 2024

Invisible Neighbours is an installation of drawings, text and sound objects that focus on the generative nature of feedback. As a collaboration the artists are working with feedback as a sonic material that they create and respond to, through drawing, electromagnetism, pedals, amps, keyboard, bodies, conversations and listening to special places.

Speakers, like twisters, reach down and up. Yet still, spitting asteroids in all directions. The exteriors of buildings, one such direction. Wirings under table another, connecting drawings where once they previously laid.

The wafting crunch of touch to ear hole; a sudden folding to re-amplify. An oceanic moment. Summons little laps against legs. This lullaby of noise haunts so softly. Or, a feminist killjoy conjuring¹.

An eyelash sticks to the sound, touching like a tissue paper zine. No staples. Listening to the forces of place, a soft mapping. Sensors recharge all efforts, and incline time to Tiriti-based transformations.

val smith

¹ The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, Sara Ahmed

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Natalie Cooper, Delaney Sturrock and C Miers
Navigate

10 April – 4 May 2024

Navigate explores relationships between the route that is mapped, the route that is traversed, and the route that is constructed or directed.

Natalie Cooper, Delaney Sturrock, and C Miers each use a sense of navigation to form their distinct practices. Each artist explores the literal navigation of the urban infrastructure and the abstract navigation of ideas that underlie this environment. These explorations are presented through material realities, aiming to prompt the viewer’s navigation of this material within a gallery context.

Iterations of grid, line, and industrialism can be seen across the wide range of media presented. This shared visual language alludes to how each artist incorporates the idea of ‘navigation’; seen literally through Natalie’s walks to RM to collect data, audio and discarded objects, indicated through Delaney’s sculptures inspired by architectural structures and embodied through C’s methodology around the painting process.

The ongoing changes in infrastructure surrounding RM bring a new material reality with implications on navigation through the immediate surroundings and the wider structure of Tāmaki Makaurau.

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Benjamin Ord, Salome Tanuvasa, and Uniform
A Dance But No Figure

6 March – 30 March 2024

Featuring a new film combining Super 8 and 4K digital footage by Benjamin Ord, Bathing Solo (1, 2, 3) re-stages a three part dance solo inside a steam room, allowing the heat and humidity inside the bathhouse to damage the film stock and obscure the view of the dance. The film probes the limits of the camera’s ability to capture a live body, where the fleeting, impermanent nature of steam stands in opposition to the camera’s ability to capture it. In evoking what is seen and unseen, choreographic form is both partially erased by and embedded within the materiality of the film itself. As it moves fluidly through temporal states of past, present and future, the work is simultaneously a document, performance and score.

The opening night of the exhibition features a live sound performance by Uniform in response to the film. The recording of this improvised act is later installed into the gallery space and left as an intermittent looping presence throughout the exhibition. Salome Tanuvasa simultaneously performs the making of a series of gestural drawings that respond to the audience as they are submerged in the soundscape of Uniform’s performance and the visual field of the film. These drawings act as recordings of liveness which are abandoned and left to remain in the space for the following weeks of the exhibition. Holding space as both objects for now, and scores for future iterations, the live event and choreography are contained within a constant process of rematerialisation across multiple forms.

Stemming from research into the global resurgence of public bathing, the exhibition explores ideas of communal embodiment inherent to these radical democratic practices of anti-competition, anti-hierarchy, and anti-privatisation. By taking choreography as a tool for self-enactment, where the creative act relates to a group as opposed to the self-contained individual, the exhibition aims to consider art making as an activity rather than a finality or production line. In perpetual slippages between abstraction and representation, the internal and external, body and object, A Dance But No Figure stages artworks which are continually lost, held and reformed in subtle gestures towards futurity.

Images by Ardit Hoxha

Tarika Sabherwal
Ragini and her nine wives

6 March – 30 March 2024

Ragini is an unexplored part of the self, the protagonist and the voyeur of her own existence. She is the fantasy and the reality, she’s a reimagined past and a reincarnated future. Exploring moments that just don’t seem like they would be associated with Ragini but why not?

Traditionally Ragini is understood as the feminine counterpart to the masculine Raga, often intertwined with the world of music and melody. This connection extends to the Ragamala miniature painting series, where a visual narrative is weaved around musical elements.

In an alternate reality where collective memory is rewritten, Ragini exists as a soft dyke, reincarnated alongside her nine wives as they live out their nine lives. It is the channelling of dyke, what would that version of Ragini look like?

The exhibition follows these manifested alter egos in their search of love, lust, learning, longing, liberation and healing.

Images by Ardit Hoxha