Christopher Ulutupu

Christopher Ulutupu is an artist of Samoan/Niuean/German descent currently residing in Wellington.

“Christopher Ulutupu’s video/performance art practice explores ongoing themes around landscape, photography, and the construction of colonial narratives. Responding to early 1900’s landscape photography and ‘postcard’ tourism, his earlier work has looked at depictions of Pacific brown people, disseminated throughout the western world: images of Pacific people sitting under coconut trees made available for European consumption. His practice seeks to re-contextualise these stereotypes and re-imagine them through video and performance, offering new ways of exploring the effects of colonisation and diaspora.” Heather Galbraith, SCAPE
 

CIRCUIT Resources

Podcast with Robbie Handcock (2021) 
Essay by Simon Palenski (2018)

CIRCUIT Projects

The Sound of Seeing, Wellington (2020)
Home Movies, Wellington (2019) 
Masons Screen, Wellington (2016)

Selected Exhibitions

2021
ATTENTION TOURIST, Cement Fondu, Sydney, Australia
A Room in Time Screening: The Romantic Picturesque, Christchurch Art Gallery
The Inner Lives of Islands, Te Tuhi, Auckland
Moana Waiwai, Moana Pāti, Tautai Gallery, Auckland
Prophetic Visions, What if the city was a theatre? The Performance Arcade, Wellington

2020
Southern Transmissions: Contemporary Video Art from Aotearoa, Duolin Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China 
Into The Open, New Zealand Festival of the Arts, Wellington
Into the Arms of my Coloniser, Rear Window Project, Dunedin Public Art Gallery 
The Sound of Seeing, The Pyramid Club, Wellington 

2019
Dreaming of Lulu (solo), Enjoy Gallery, Wellington
Our Sea of Islands, Nu Space, Chengdu, China
More than all the oceans between us, Artspace, Sydney
CIRCUIT Distributors Screening, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany
CIRCUIT Programme, Auckland Live! Digital Stage, Auckland

2018
The Romantic Picturesque (solo) The Physics Room, Christchurch
The Romantic Picturesque (solo) Play_Station, Wellington
Lelia and Fitu (Seven), SCAPE Public Art Season, Christchurch
Tulisi, Australian National University Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Into The Arms Of My Coloniser, Recess, Australia

2017
The Tomorrow People, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington
The Romantic Picturesque (solo), Hobiennale, Tasmania, Australia
OFFSTAGE 8, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland
Get The Picture, Blakdot Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Cold Islanders, Waikato Museum, Hamilton
Masons Screen, Wellington