CIRCUIT CAST

Fiona Amundsen talks to Mark Amery about the forthcoming premiere of her CIRCUIT Artist Cinema commission 'A body that lives' which examines the 1944 breakout (from a prison camp in Cowra, Australia) of just over 1,000 Japanese prisoners. Still from A body that lives (2017) Fiona Amundsen.

In this pod Martin Patrick, Thomasin Sleigh and host Mark Amery discuss Acting Out, an Adam Art Gallery survey of New Zealand and international artists “who express the raw physicality of sex with varying degrees of candour.”

Inspired by the simple realisation that all energy for life on Earth comes from the Sun, Trudy Lane’s Sunroom is an installation that stretches to encompass astrophysics, energy, ecology, and cosmologies. Presented in Dunedin by Urban Dream Brokerage, Sunroom also features numerous sonic collaborators, including Alastair Galbraith, Matt de Gennaro, Connor Boyle, Peter Claman and Sarah Claman whose...

"One thing has led to another..." On the release of a career spanning book, 101 year old artist Michael Nicholson talks to Mark Amery about art, the power of the absurd, witchcraft, mystic philosophy and "the power to live life gracefully". The pod took place in Michael's home studio in Wellington. Copies of the book can be ordered through publisher Steel Roberts - http://steeleroberts.co.nz/produ...

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....

“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 Sm...

“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 at...

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 emerg...

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...

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 Parado...

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, Fli...

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 an...

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 Pā...

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, cura...

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 Auckla...