Alex is underwater wearing a wetsuit in a green ocean. She is coming up for air and is exhaling creating large bubbles in the water

Still from Deep Ocean Currents (2020) Alex Monteith

SymposiumHuihuinga

AURA 2020

AURA Festival of Moving Images 2020 was presented by CIRCUIT in association with Pātaka Art + Museum, Porirua.

AURA 2020 presented a focussed dialogue between 5 new artist works and a 1-day academic symposium.

  • Friday 23 October saw the screening of the 2020 CIRCUIT Artist Cinema Commissions

  • Saturday 24 October was the full symposium, Sovereign Pacific/Pacific Sovereigns.

Symposium

AURA 2020 sought to explore how sovereignty is inscribed in art—on page, on screen, in space, on bodies, and in the natural world. What is sovereignty? Is it innate and universal, or something to be contested and won, in a given place and time? The word suggests an autonomy that is at once individual and collective, yet sovereignty may be more than political, and more than strictly human. Indeed, as our modernity culminates in mounting global crises, we are compelled to recalibrate all our rights and freedoms in favour of others, of animate and inanimate things, of the planet itself.

Curator-at-large

Both the screening and the symposium were curated by CIRCUIT’s international curator-at-large for 2020 David Teh, a curator and Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, specialising in Southeast Asian contemporary art. David's previous curatorial projects include Returns, a project for the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018), Misfits: Pages from a Loose-leaf Modernity (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2017) and Unreal Asia (55. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2009). Due to the limitations imposed by Covid 19, David will participate in AURA 2020 via Zoom.

Keynote and programme speakers

The symposium keynote was Dr Carl Mika, with other speakers, including:

  • David Teh

  • Alex Monteith

  • Rachel Rakena

  • Sorawit Songsataya

  • Vera Mey

  • Andrew Clifford

  • Ana Iti

  • Lana Lopesi, and others.

A huge thanks to our partners Pātaka Art + Museum for their collaboration in presenting this project.

Symposium details

Pātaka Art + Museum, Porirua
October 22, 2020 - October 23, 2020

    He ringatoi anōRelated artists

    A computer-generated man looks forward with a glowing ball containing multiple things in front of him

    Rangituhia Hollis

    Rangituhia Hollis
    A still of Ana It's work showing a black background with white text reading "Does the spirit intrinsically know what direction to travel".

    Ana Iti

    Ana Iti
    A still from Alex Monteith’s video work shows a large wave breaking. The ocean is a dark blue and foamy white.

    Alex Monteith

    Alex Monteith
    A digital person covered in hair is crawling through a blank void

    Sorawit Songsataya

    Sorawit Songsataya

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    South Pacific context.

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