CIRCUIT CAST

In this CIRCUIT Cast 2019 review we welcome Becky Hemus (Writer), Remco de Blaaij (Director, Artspace Aotearoa), Judy Darragh (artist) and Lucinda Bennett (writer). Our panellists gather to discuss the notable shows, artists, works and provocations of the Aotearoa artworld in the year past; in the moving image and every other discipline you can name. Among the highlights celebrated are Māori Movin...

“I’m interested in what Pacific work looks like situated in a lens of popular culture” - Tanu Gago Savage in the Garden is a new work by Tanu Gago, currently showing as part of Personal Space, CIRCUIT’s 2019 Artist Cinema Commissions, curated by Serena Bentley. Here Tanu talks to Mark Amery about a practice based on countering false narratives of Pasifika masculinity and overcoming cultural disloc...

On the phone from Sydney Chevron Hassett talks to Mark Amery about Mauri Tū, The First Breath of Light (2019) showing as part of Home Movies, this Saturday 28 September 10am-4pm in Wellington. The work visualises the sunrise over Te Moana Nui a Kiwi (The Pacific Ocean) at Rangitikuia, East Cape just North of Gisborne, into the lands of the Ngāti Porou. Hassett describes the video as "a continuous...

"A lot of confessions we make are performative" - Serena Bentley In this podcast Melbourne-based curator Serena Bentley talks to Mark Amery about Personal Space, CIRCUIT's 2019 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions. Personal Space features new works by Natasha Matila-Smith, Campbell Patterson, Janet Lilo, Tanu Gago and Atong Atem. Each artist was asked by Bentley to make a short film which respon...

"There's always the question of authoring ... I like the shared space of co-production" - Alex Monteith In this career-spanning interview with Mark Williams, Alex Monteith discusses Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions (2019). This ongoing installation project brings together representatives of Iwi, South Island museums and researchers nationwide to revisit a collection of archaeological material fr...

A new roundtable podcast brings together three Auckland gallery directors; Gabriela Salgado (Te Tuhi), Lisa Beauchamp (Gus Fisher) and Charlotte Huddlestone (St Paul St Gallery), to discuss recent strategies for sustainability and audience engagement. Drawing on perspectives both local and international, the panel discuss the role of University galleries within the institution, reaching out to pub...

From 30 April-4 May 2019 the Auckland Art Fair expects up to 10,000 people through its doors. What's showing? Who is it for? How does an event like this represent local practice? Does that matter? Host Mark Amery sat down with co-director Stephanie Post, projects curator Francis McWhannell and artist Judy Darragh to discuss what an event like this means for contemporary New Zealand art. 
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Peter Wareing is a New Zealand artist who has spent most of the past 30 years working in the USA and now in the UK. His exhibition Suspended Agency at the Govett Brewster examines a distinctly modern condition: individual and collective numbness in the face of increasing political and economic insecurity. In this interview Wareing talks with CIRCUIT Director and the shows curator Mark Williams abo...

“the problem is with bureaucrats who are preventing us from seeing the content” - Luke Fowler Recently in Wellington for the opening of the Adam Art Gallery installation Passages, Scottish film-maker Luke Fowler sat down with Mark Williams at City Gallery Wellington for a wide-ranging interview on filming portraits of experimental musicians, the revolutionary potential of the past, the responsibil...

In this end of year podcast panellists Heather Galbraith, Shannon Te Ao, Simon Gennard join host Mark Amery to discuss the highs and lows of 2018, charting shifting tides, the artworld's 'Complicated Love', and a year of diverse perspectives moving to the centre. Part 1: Personal Highlights of 2018, Trends of the year, Best show. Part 2: Biggest surprises, Best publication, Best writing, Best movi...

In this end of year podcast panellists Heather Galbraith, Shannon Te Ao, Simon Gennard join host Mark Amery to discuss the highs and lows of 2018, charting shifting tides, the artworld's 'Complicated Love', and a year of diverse perspectives moving to the centre. Part 1: Personal Highlights of 2018, Trends of the year, Best show. Part 2: Biggest surprises, Best publication, Best writing, Best movi...

"The most interesting way to follow an artist is to do the opposite of what they did" This is not film-making. Artists work for cinema was our 2016 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions. As we launch a limited screening season online, we revisit a 2016 podcast interview with curator George Clark, who discusses the legacy and inspiration of conceptual artist Julian Dashper, whose work Clark positi...

“What is true to you may not be true to your neighbour.” -Vea Mafile`o Ahead of the premiere of Truth or Consequences, CIRCUIT’s 2018 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions, Vea Mafile`o and Jeremy Leatinu’u discuss responding to curator Erika Balsom’s brief which challenged the artists to consider personal and public ‘realities’. Truth and Consequences premieres 6.30pm, Friday 14 September, Ellen...

“The terrorist spectacle accommodates a dirtier game underneath” - Johan Grimonprez. On his 24 hour trip to Wellington, New Zealand we caught up Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez to discuss his films Blue Orchids and Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, showing at City Gallery Wellington as part of the exhibition 'Iconography Of Revolt'. Made 20 years apart, Grimonprez describes both films as part of the timeline of...

“There's something inevitably fascistic about a perfect world” - Stella Brennan. UK academic Sean Cubitt joins Stella Brennan and host Mark Amery to discuss 'Object Permanence', Stella's new solo show at Trish Clark gallery, plus technological utopias and making dialogue with the non-human.

“If the essay film has become a trope…and these strategies that we’re using have become formulaic, how do we negotiate our way through that?” - Gavin Hipkins. In the fourth of our conversation series artists Sonya Lacey and Gavin Hipkins come together to discuss working methodologies, a shared interest in failed modernist utopias, and the moving image as a distribution mode of sculpture. Hosted by...

"It's about bringing the conversation into the stuff people don't bother talking about" - Marie Shannon In this pod, host Thomasin Sleigh welcomes Marie Shannon and Megan Dunn for an extended discussion about 'Rooms Found Only In The Home' Marie's survey at the Adam Art Gallery, Megan's new book 'Tinderbox', navigating the decisive moment, the plight of the submerging artist, and being subversive....

“I would like to see thinking understood as a materiality.” - Bridget Riggir-Cuddy On the occasion of the exhibition Starling recently installed at Artspace, artist Sorawit Songsataya and Artspace Assistant Curator Bridget Riggir-Cuddy sit down to unpack their six-year collaborative relationship, the ethics of making, and post-humanist theory. With podcast host Mark Amery.

"It doesn't matter if you're in a bloody gallery or not as long as you're making stuff" - Phil Dadson In the first episode of our new long-form podcast series Artists In Conversation, we present a discussion between Phil Dadson and Sean Kerr. Topics covered include intermedia practice in New Zealand from past to present, open source art and the recently installed From Scratch exhibition and perfor...

For our 2017 recap, host Mark Amery is joined by Cameron Ah Loo Matamua, Abby Cunnane and Judy Darragh. Topics covered include; powerful women, generational shifts, emerging artists, Documenta, Labour's arts policy, great pieces of writing, documents and flags. Honourable mentions are made of many but include Sione Monu, Chris Krause, Leafa Wilson, Ahilapalapa Rands, Lana Lopesi, Luke Willis-Thomp...

How does the body absorb the pulse of technology? What connects the mechanical and the breath? This week on CIRCUIT Cast, host Mark Amery talks to CIRCUIT Curatorial Intern Priscilla Howe during the installation of her group show PULSE/REPEAT at the Audio Foundation in Auckland. PULSE/REPEAT runs until December 20.

"The film strip is a body acquiring memory". Ahead of group show PULSE / REPEAT at The Audio Foundation, Montreal film-maker Alexandre Larose discusses his recent New Zealand residency, the making of his work St Bathans repetitions and "putting myself in a situation I can't control". PULSE / REPEAT opens 5.30pm Thurs 30 November at The Audio Foundation, and runs until 20 December 2017.

What are the challenges and opportunities facing Pacific artists in New Zealand today? The Director of the Tautai Pacific Arts Trust Christina Jeffery speaks to host Mark Amery about the successes of the Pacific art community and support needed for it’s development. Recorded earlier in 2017, Mark and Christina begin by talking about the Honolulu Biennial and the shared concerns between Pacific Rim...

On the phone from London, Mercedes Vicente discusses the curatorial process behind Thick Cinema, CIRCUIT's 2017 programme of Artist Cinema Commissions with new work by Fiona Amundsen, John Di Stefano, Sam Hamilton, Kim Pieters, Joyce Campbell. Thick Cinema premiers 6.30pm, Friday 25 August at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. Interviewer: Mark Amery

In a CIRCUIT first, this pod takes place from the set of Sam Hamilton's new film. Phoning in from Portland Oregon, Sam talks to host Mark Amery about the newly commissioned work, screening as a part of this years CIRCUIT Symposium. Still from FOR THIRTY YEARS, NANCY WOULD SIT OUT ON THE STREET CORNER AND WATCH THE SUNSET (2017) Sam Hamilton​.