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A gift built from familiar materials

Te H¯ıkoi Toi

I’ve been listening to a new album release from Oro Records – Tararua’s Bird Like Men. It’s the fresh sounds of Ariana Tikao, Ruby Solly, Al Fraser and Phil Boniface. They’re performing at the launch tonight at The Futuna Chapel – a perfect acoustic venue for their lilting jazz and folk arrangements, with their chest-expanding ta¯ onga pu¯ oro and immersive vocals by Solly and Tikao.

Listening to the album I felt cocooned by the sounds at times, and at others, freshwinged on the air of the pu¯ oro. Each artist holds this power in their own right, but when they come together they become something else again. It’s populating a new and surprising place of its own in the scene. A gift built from familiar materials, both exciting and comforting at the same time.

Another such place was on display at the third birthday exhibition The Big Three for the Jhana Millers Gallery. All of Millers’ artists have new work on show and yet, despite having seen and enjoyed each artist in the past, this show has some sort of magical ingredient that feels cohesive and jubilant. Millers opened the gallery not knowing she’d need to tackle a pandemic along the way of an already tenuous sink-orswim phase of a new business.

Elisabeth Pointon’s work Big Win, a large red inflatable chamber is like the flagship statement for the celebration. Holding space for new and emerging artists has always been one of Millers’ strengths, and this crazy blow-up sculpture, where you can step inside and try your luck at winning, is not unlike life in the arts.

Claudia Kogachi’s Real Estate Agent is a textile piece with a big red SOLD sign. It feels like the perfect and most unattainable response to Big Win. Both are not only grappling with the reality of life in the arts but also our generation, where winning the lottery and buying your own home are safe in your dreams.

A text and line work by Ayesha Green hits differently to her portraits of her family. It’s still about whakapapa but is instead filled with family names as subject matter. Caitlin Devoy’s Switch (black) brings playful mammarian content to the walls, while Erica van Zon’s Hoi An Temple Tile winks back at Robbie Handcock’s monoprint

Bromeliad through its tropical window.

Chris Ulutupu brings brilliant filmic comedy with video New Kid in Town VI exposing what one half-naked over-zealous Pa¯ keha¯ dude might bring to the party. This party of artists is eclectic, like any good gathering, and Caroline McQuarrie reminds us in her embroidered text that ‘‘All waves are connected, they carried you from a distant beach to this place’’.

Sometimes, though, it’s the blatant disconnection that brings artists together. Flat Earthers is a group show at Massey University’s Engine Room, and the result of artist responses to John Lake’s documentation of the 2019 Flat Earth

Conference, unpacking misinformation in the ‘‘information age’’. It started as an online exhibition in 2020.

Cassandra Barnett’s Undefended uses quotes from Donald Trump, Jacinda Ardern, Audre Lorde and others in watercolour. The gentle visual impact is juxtaposed by the often abrasive and challenging words used like ‘‘eliminate’’, ‘‘refuse’’ and ‘‘abolish’’. Bek Coogan’s Mud Woman and Nicola is brilliant satire on both make-up tutorials and rightwing politics.

Ben Buchanan has some plastic bags painted with wands that feel very American Beauty-esque. Nikolai Noel and Matt Shelton document themselves gradually filling up a balloon by one blowing into it and shipping it to the other, and repeating the process. They draw real-time portraits of each other from respective mountain peaks on different continents and dig a tunnel between the two locations through the use of a green screen. It’s all hilariously discombobulating and together as a group of artists they have matched the unhinged nature of their subject matter. The content has been carefully curated into a book designed by Kerry-Ann Lee which will be launched with a discussion led by Pip Adam at an event on Tuesday.

I like to think as I am immersed in ta¯ onga pu¯ oro, I become something new to myself. As I step into the celebration of an exhibition I can be the party. As I sit with some wacko concepts, any questions I may have had about whether I had an inner conspiracy theorist are truly put to bed. Because groups can envelop us and hold us as part of something, as much as they can highlight how different we really all are.

Te Karanga Auaha Te Karanga Auaha

en-nz

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/283377654985258

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