TALKS PROGRAMME
artfair.co.nzYou are invited to join a programme of curated and moderated talks entitled A Base of People, designed to stimulate public debate in the framework of the Art Fair. Over three days, three different panels will consider thought provoking questions raised and answered by local and international artists, writers and cultural actors around the unique position of Aotearoa as a place for contemporary art production.
The three sessions engage ‘people based’ panels, drawing from the embodied knowledge and lived experience, rather than putting forward a theoretical approach. All the panelists are involved in the arts ecology of Aotearoa, but also operate outside it.
The 2021 Talks Programme is curated by Remco de Blaaij (Director of Artspace Aotearoa) on behalf of Ngātahi (a collaboration between Auckland arts organisations Artspace Aotearoa, Gus Fisher Gallery, Objectspace, ST PAUL St Gallery, Te Tuhi and Te Uru) and is supported by Creative New Zealand.
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Talk 1: Parallel Worlds, a new imagination on internationality
Thursday 25 February, 3 - 4:30pm
If we think about international links, what is the imagination of Aotearoa in the rest of the world, and what is now expected from a diverse range of practices and knowledge coming out of Aotearoa? What are the demands put on Indigenous work, both by public organisations, as well as by individual collectors? What is needed to provide more manaakitanga for these works in frameworks that are seemingly not designed to house them?
The panel will be led by Ioana Gordon-Smith with Tim Melville and Ema Tavola.
Ioana Gordon-Smith
Ioana Gordon-Smith is an arts writer and Curator Māori Pacific at Pātaka Art + Museum. Prior to this role, she was the inaugural Curator at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Ioana has also worked as Curator at Objectspace, a gallery dedicated to craft, design and applied arts, and as the inaugural Education Intern for Artspace, New Zealand, a role which came about through a partnership between Tautai Contemporary Arts Trust and Artspace to increase the accessibility of Artspace to its nearby Pacific audiences.
In addition to her curatorial work, Ioana also contributes regularly to a number of catalogues as well as magazines and journals, such as Art New Zealand, Art News New Zealand and un Magazine. She was the New Zealand-based project manager for the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 and has been a regular Pasifika correspondent for Radio New Zealand.
She plays an important role in community arts as a trustee for the community-focused art collective Whau The People. Though her areas of interest span a broad range of disciplines, what is consistent throughout is a curatorial process that prioritises a close working relationship with artists and arts communities.
Ioana is the Assistant Curator of Yuki Kihara, Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022.
Ema Tavola
Ema Tavola is an independent artist-curator based in South Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Tavola’s curatorial concerns are grounded in the opportunities for contemporary art to engage grassroots audiences, shift representational politics and archive the Pacific diaspora experience. Tavola has worked in galleries and museums throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and is committed to curating as a mechanism for social inclusion, centralising Pacific ways of seeing and exhibition making as a mode of decolonisation. She opened her independent gallery, Vunilagi Vou in 2019, which relocated from a commercial premises to her converted garage as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Price
- Free with admission
Date
- Thu 25 Feb
Time
- 3:00 pm — 4:30 pm
Address
- The Cloud
- Queen's Wharf, 89 Quay Street
- Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, 1010
You are invited to join a programme of curated and moderated talks entitled A Base of People, designed to stimulate public debate in the framework of the Art Fair. Over three days, three different panels will consider thought provoking questions raised and answered by local and international artists, writers and cultural actors around the unique position of Aotearoa as a place for contemporary art production.
The three sessions engage ‘people based’ panels, drawing from the embodied knowledge and lived experience, rather than putting forward a theoretical approach. All the panelists are involved in the arts ecology of Aotearoa, but also operate outside it.
The 2021 Talks Programme is curated by Remco de Blaaij (Director of Artspace Aotearoa) on behalf of Ngātahi (a collaboration between Auckland arts organisations Artspace Aotearoa, Gus Fisher Gallery, Objectspace, ST PAUL St Gallery, Te Tuhi and Te Uru) and is supported by Creative New Zealand.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Talk 1: Parallel Worlds, a new imagination on internationality
Thursday 25 February, 3 - 4:30pm
If we think about international links, what is the imagination of Aotearoa in the rest of the world, and what is now expected from a diverse range of practices and knowledge coming out of Aotearoa? What are the demands put on Indigenous work, both by public organisations, as well as by individual collectors? What is needed to provide more manaakitanga for these works in frameworks that are seemingly not designed to house them?
The panel will be led by Ioana Gordon-Smith with Tim Melville and Ema Tavola.
Ioana Gordon-Smith
Ioana Gordon-Smith is an arts writer and Curator Māori Pacific at Pātaka Art + Museum. Prior to this role, she was the inaugural Curator at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. Ioana has also worked as Curator at Objectspace, a gallery dedicated to craft, design and applied arts, and as the inaugural Education Intern for Artspace, New Zealand, a role which came about through a partnership between Tautai Contemporary Arts Trust and Artspace to increase the accessibility of Artspace to its nearby Pacific audiences.
In addition to her curatorial work, Ioana also contributes regularly to a number of catalogues as well as magazines and journals, such as Art New Zealand, Art News New Zealand and un Magazine. She was the New Zealand-based project manager for the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 and has been a regular Pasifika correspondent for Radio New Zealand.
She plays an important role in community arts as a trustee for the community-focused art collective Whau The People. Though her areas of interest span a broad range of disciplines, what is consistent throughout is a curatorial process that prioritises a close working relationship with artists and arts communities.
Ioana is the Assistant Curator of Yuki Kihara, Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022.
Ema Tavola
Ema Tavola is an independent artist-curator based in South Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Tavola’s curatorial concerns are grounded in the opportunities for contemporary art to engage grassroots audiences, shift representational politics and archive the Pacific diaspora experience. Tavola has worked in galleries and museums throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and is committed to curating as a mechanism for social inclusion, centralising Pacific ways of seeing and exhibition making as a mode of decolonisation. She opened her independent gallery, Vunilagi Vou in 2019, which relocated from a commercial premises to her converted garage as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
