Daniel Sanders
DANIEL JOHN CORBETT SANDERS (b.1994) is a Taranaki Pākehā multidisciplinary artist and independent curator. He studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology and is the founder of artist-run gallery Parasite. His work investigates the dreams and catastrophes of recent urban history viewed through new queer narratives of inner-city life.
"Around the world there has been an increasing pressure on LGBTQ+ venues to shut their doors, such as gay bars, sex stores, cruise clubs and community centres. Amongst many reasons, this increasing pressure is due to cuts in governmental funding, rising rents and a cultural sterilising consequential of gentrification processes. As a gay sex worker in Tāmaki Makaurau, I have witnessed similar tensions and devastating, destructive and demoralising consequences that new urban developments have had on LGBTQ+ venues and cultures. Recognising this global crisis for LGBTQ+ people and cultures, my work seeks to document how LGBTQ+ cultures are responding to these changes through recording my personal experiences and interaction with them. From the fossils and ruins of a nostalgic sexual liberation and ideas of radical love, to the fetishistic dreams that wish to carve out a queer future but are subsumed by colonial homonationalism, my work sifts through LGBTQ+ cultures and all their contradictory dreams and catastrophes in pursuit of what queerness means today." - Artist Statement
CIRCUIT Resources
Podcast with Robbie Handcock and Neihana Gordon-Stables (2021)
Selected Exhibitions:
2021
Urban Nothing, RM Gallery, Auckland (solo)
2020
Queer Pavilion, Rangipuke Albert Park, Auckland
Social Practice, Auckland
2019
Intimate Atmospheres, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland (solo)
The Marketplace of Feelings, Corban Estate Art Centre, Auckland
Bttm methodologies, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland
2018
Fool for a world that will end (with Owen Connors), Mother, Auckland
After Jack, Window, Auckland (solo)
After Carmen, Meanwhile, Wellington (solo)
Under Your Skin You Look Divine, Basement Specialist Adult Store and Cruise Club, Auckland (curated by Daniel John Corbett Sanders)
