Artist

  • Natasha Matila-Smith
dunedin.art.museum

Natasha Matila-Smith is a multimedia artist whose artworks explore notions of romance, loneliness and the skewed or fictionalised nature of public performance through moving image, photography and text. 7 Minutes in Heaven (2021) is a moving portrait where the rift between public and private lives narrows, and in which a sense of romantic tension and disconnection gradually unfolds.

The idea of life, both online and offline, as being a kind of performance is played with in 7 Minutes in Heaven. While digital social networks and technologies disrupt and potentially erode spaces for genuine intimacy, Matila-Smith considers how to be an object of desire in any space.

Matila-Smith describes her works as being like an excerpt rather than a complete story, and although a feeling of ambiguity filters through 7 Minutes in Heaven, an apparent monologue emerges within the held gaze of subject and viewer.


Natasha Matila-Smith is an arts practitioner who lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2014 from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. Her practice modus operandi is through confessional text-based works that explore her personal experiences of loneliness and discomfort in the world and, at the same time, how they relate to larger socio-political structures.

Opening Hours

  • Daily, 10am-5pm

Address

  • 30 The Octagon
  • Dunedin, 9016