The air, like a stone, brings together a feature-length 16mm film by Rosalind Nashashibi, Denim Sky (2018-2022), and a newly commissioned installation by Emma Fitts. Vastly different in many ways, Nashashibi and Fitts’ works share a concern with non-nuclear relationships—social, material, human—and non-linear time.
Denim Sky is made with friends and family as cast, over three years and across locations including the Orkney Islands, the Scottish National Gallery, and the Baltic Sea. The work is based on a fiction that a group has been brought together to experiment with a form of space travel that uses non-linear time.
In Fitts’ work, made from canvas, felted wool, metal and wooden rods, rope and other textiles, the materials are inter-reliant elements in a larger system, architectural structure or drawing. The work occupies the front of the gallery, remaining lit and able to be viewed through the night, for the duration of the show. As a whole the exhibition is about moments of convergence, or community: when something intuitively or collectively experienced becomes momentarily solid and substantial, like a stone.
Emma Fitts’ practice spans painting, photography and sculpture. Recurrent themes in her works include queer art histories, Modernist textiles and architectures, and the idea of biography, with a particular emphasis on emotion and affect. Fitts studied at the University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi, and completed an MFA at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. Recent solo exhibitions include Petal, Melanie Roger Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2023; Lapping at your door, Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2022-23; In The Rough: Parts 1, 2 & 3, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi, 2019; and From Pressure to Vibration: The Event of a Thread, The Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt, 2017. Recent group exhibitions include Tree in a Hurry, The National, Ōtautahi, 2022; Evolutions of Galaxies, MADA gallery, Monash University, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; and Touching Sight (with Conor Clarke and Oliver Perkins), Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna Waiwhetū, 2020-2021. Fitts returned to Ōtautahi from the UK in 2014 as the Olivia Spencer Bower recipient, was a McCahon House resident for winter 2018, and completed the Fulbright-Wallace residency at The Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, in 2019. Fitts lives and works in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Rosalind Nashashibi is a painter and filmmaker. Her work often deals with everyday observations alongside mythological elements, and considers relationships between community and extended family. She studied at Sheffield Hallam University and Glasgow School of Art, where she received an MFA in 2000. As part of her Master’s degree, Nashashibi participated in a three-month exchange program in Valencia, California (US) at CalArts. Nashashibi became the first artist in residence at the National Gallery in London (UK), after the program was re-established in 2020. Recent solo exhibitions include Hooks, Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, Nottingham, 2023; Monogram, at Radvika Palace for CAC Vilnius and Carré d’Art, Musée d'art Contemporain de Nîmes, 2023; An Overflow of Passion and Sentiment, National Gallery, London, 2021; and Future Sun (with Lucy Skaer), S.M.A.K., Ghent, 2020. Nashashibi was a Turner Prize nominee in 2017, and represented Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2013. Her work has been included in Documenta 14, Manifesta 7, the Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah 10. Nashashibi lives and works in London.
Opening Hours
- Tuesday - Friday, 11am - 5pm
- Saturday - Sunday, 11am - 4pm
Address
- 301 Montreal Street
- The Arts Centre Registry Additions Building (access from The Arts Centre Market Square)
- Ōtautahi, Christchurch, 8013
The air, like a stone, brings together a feature-length 16mm film by Rosalind Nashashibi, Denim Sky (2018-2022), and a newly commissioned installation by Emma Fitts. Vastly different in many ways, Nashashibi and Fitts’ works share a concern with non-nuclear relationships—social, material, human—and non-linear time.
Denim Sky is made with friends and family as cast, over three years and across locations including the Orkney Islands, the Scottish National Gallery, and the Baltic Sea. The work is based on a fiction that a group has been brought together to experiment with a form of space travel that uses non-linear time.
In Fitts’ work, made from canvas, felted wool, metal and wooden rods, rope and other textiles, the materials are inter-reliant elements in a larger system, architectural structure or drawing. The work occupies the front of the gallery, remaining lit and able to be viewed through the night, for the duration of the show. As a whole the exhibition is about moments of convergence, or community: when something intuitively or collectively experienced becomes momentarily solid and substantial, like a stone.
Emma Fitts’ practice spans painting, photography and sculpture. Recurrent themes in her works include queer art histories, Modernist textiles and architectures, and the idea of biography, with a particular emphasis on emotion and affect. Fitts studied at the University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi, and completed an MFA at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. Recent solo exhibitions include Petal, Melanie Roger Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2023; Lapping at your door, Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2022-23; In The Rough: Parts 1, 2 & 3, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi, 2019; and From Pressure to Vibration: The Event of a Thread, The Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt, 2017. Recent group exhibitions include Tree in a Hurry, The National, Ōtautahi, 2022; Evolutions of Galaxies, MADA gallery, Monash University, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; and Touching Sight (with Conor Clarke and Oliver Perkins), Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna Waiwhetū, 2020-2021. Fitts returned to Ōtautahi from the UK in 2014 as the Olivia Spencer Bower recipient, was a McCahon House resident for winter 2018, and completed the Fulbright-Wallace residency at The Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, in 2019. Fitts lives and works in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Rosalind Nashashibi is a painter and filmmaker. Her work often deals with everyday observations alongside mythological elements, and considers relationships between community and extended family. She studied at Sheffield Hallam University and Glasgow School of Art, where she received an MFA in 2000. As part of her Master’s degree, Nashashibi participated in a three-month exchange program in Valencia, California (US) at CalArts. Nashashibi became the first artist in residence at the National Gallery in London (UK), after the program was re-established in 2020. Recent solo exhibitions include Hooks, Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, Nottingham, 2023; Monogram, at Radvika Palace for CAC Vilnius and Carré d’Art, Musée d'art Contemporain de Nîmes, 2023; An Overflow of Passion and Sentiment, National Gallery, London, 2021; and Future Sun (with Lucy Skaer), S.M.A.K., Ghent, 2020. Nashashibi was a Turner Prize nominee in 2017, and represented Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2013. Her work has been included in Documenta 14, Manifesta 7, the Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah 10. Nashashibi lives and works in London.
