Circuit Cast

“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.

What’s the difference between a cave in Sydney and the Auckland Art Gallery? Joyce Campbell discusses her Walters prize-nominated project Flightdream and her working relationships with site and technology. Campbell also discusses Te Taniwha, an ongoing photographic project drawing on the mythology, history and ecology of Waikaremoana and its many tributaries and outlets. Image: Joyce Campbell, Flightdream II (video still) 2016, three-channel HD video installation, 30:00 min looped, colour, sound by Peter Kolovos, text by Mark von Schlegel narrated by Andrew Maxwell, courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms, Auckland, (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, 2016.

Could New Zealand’s geographical distance be seen as a strength? Is the rumour more potent than the work? How would reframing conceptualist Julian Dashper as a video artist remap New Zealand’s art history? Ahead of the CIRCUIT symposium Phantom Topologies our curator-at-large George Clark talks with Mark Amery about This is not film-making. Artists work for cinema, a programme curated by George and commissioned by CIRCUIT. Plus he discusses symposium guests Merv Espina, Martha and Jake Atienza, and new models for artist run space in South East Asia. Jake Atienza and Merv Espina's visit to New Zealand is supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

How does the method of a works making afford its participants anything? Ahead of his participation in the CIRCUIT Symposium Phantom Topologies we caught up with artist John Vea to discuss translating the stories of others, and hynotising the audience with the mahi (work). Image: John Vea, 29.09.2009 Tribute to Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga (2013)

In this podcast the panel puzzle over the 'beautiful threads' that interrogate the Adam Art Gallery group show Inhabiting Space but ask 'is that enough?' Installation view: Sriwhana Spong, The Fourth Notebook, 2015, HD Video, 8mins 36 secs. Courtesy of Michael Lett, Auckland. Dancer Benjamin ord. Commissioned by Carriageworks Sydney. In the exhibition Inhabiting Space at The Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington. (photo: Shaun Waugh)

Can an image plane be traversed like the threshold of a building, moving from inside to outside and back again? And if so, what are the effects of this movement? Have our bodies become so used to crossing the image plane that they accept and absorb the shrapnel of this collision? What does this kind of co-existence with images mean for our social relations? Mark Amery talks to Andrew Kennedy, curator of The Non-Living Agent, an installation at Te Tuhi from 11 June 2016 - 24 July 2016 featuring work by Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (Fr), Dorota Broda (NZ), James Richards (UK), Sorawit Songsataya (NZ). Image: Sorawit Songsataya, Bronies (2016), Animation 3.13 min, 3D printed vases, images printed on steel commissioned by Te Tuhi, Auckland Photo by Sam Hartnett

As Janet Lilo enjoys her first solo survey show 'Status Update' at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, the artist speaks to Mark Amery about coincidence, accountability and her addiction to a socially-driven practice. Image: Janet Lilo, Portrait, digital photograph

Ahead of a series of nationwide screenings in July, the pod examine Amanda Newall's The Hoover Diairies, which chronicles the dawn of neo-liberalism in 1980s New Zealand through a series of true and strangely connected events; a murder, a pop concert and the introduction of fishing quotas.

Traces and Transmissions; In this podcast Thomasin Sleigh and Tim Corballis join host Mark Amery to discuss Sonya Lacey's installation Infinitesimals, which taks it's cues from homeopathy, linguistics and material shift.. Recently installed at Massey University's Engine Room and The Physics Room in Christchurch the pod find parallels with modernism, abstraction and much more.

Auckland Art fair returns, so what's new this year? With dozens of exhibitors representing over 200 artists from New Zealand and abroad, the 2016 Auckland Art Fair is an ambitious re-invention. Host Mark Amery chatted with co-director Stephanie Post in the lead up to the first fair in three years.

We have a reality, do we really need another one? On the occasion of his installation lowercase at Starkwhite Gallery, Clinton Watkins discusses the real, the virtual and spinning skulls. Your interviewer is Mark Amery. Image: Still from mono (2015) Clinton Watkins

Yuki Kihara leads Mark Amery on a walkthrough of her exhibition ‘A Study of a Samoan Savage’ at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Examining historical and contemporary depictions of the Samoan body, Kihara discusses the show’s links between Samoan spirituality, Eadweard Muybridge and Sonny Bill Williams. Curator Ioana Gordon-Smith joins us briefly to discuss the shows resonance in West Auckland. Image: Subscapular with Skinfold Caliper' (2015) From 'A Study of a Samoan Savage' (2015) series Yuki Kihara Courtesy of Yuki Kihara and Milford Galleries Dunedin

Cinema of splendour or 'be-numbed ego-centrism'? Martin Patrick, Thomasin Sleigh and Mark Amery review Matthew Barney's epic cine-opera River of Fundament. The pod discuss Barney's interplay between sculpture, cinema and visual art, his positions on gender and women, and his many references to celebrated figures of the 20th century avant-garde. Is this a film for our times? All this plus J Hoberman and James Lee Byers. Image: River of Fundament (2014) Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler

How does a gallery best serve it’s public? How does a gallery best serve an artist? In this podcast Ema Tavola, Judy Darragh and host Mark Amery find many resonances in the work of Angela Tiatia, but lament the missed opportunities in a survey at Māngere Arts Centre. Image credit: Angela Tiatia, Walking the Wall, 2014, Digital Video, Duration 13:04 minutes. Courtesy of the Artist & Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.