EssaysTuhinga roa

Samuel Te Kani considers existentialism and affect in the work of sculptor and performance artist Peter Roche, viewed through the lens of Night Piece, a new documentary by Bridget Sutherland.

Hana Pera Aoake explores the poetic and generative role of whakapapa—a means of creating layers—in Emily Parr's Through the time spiral: ʻOli ʻUla (2021).

Kirsty Baker considers creation, expansion, and the contingencies of mystic Hildegard Von Bingen's Lingua Ignota in Sriwhana Spong's a hook but no fish (2017).

Bronwyn Holloway-Smith responds to the 2024 Masons Screen commissions and considers the potential contribution of public art to contemporary political discourse.

Victoria Wynne-Jones considers an amicable approach to historiography in three recent works by Tim Wagg.

Mark Amery considers the role of moving image in giving voice in the work of artist Cushla Donaldson, with a focus on the 2021 film, Neighbourhood of Truth.

In this expansive and lyrical text, writer Gwynneth Porter explores poetry, self-fictioning and plasticity in three recent works by Aliyah Winter.

Lila Bullen-Smith writes on she feeds the birds (2023), a dystopian filmic take on Tāmaki Makaurau by Lily Worrall.

A picture essay of CIRCUIT's trip to Bangkok, featuring Aotearoa artists Martin Sagadin, Pati Tyrell, Tanu Gago and a community of Thai artists and film-makers.

Sinead Overbye considers artists' approach to place and representation in the 2022-23 Masons Screen commissions.

"The reality of being in this country as descendants of settlers is something that is more akin to the reality of swamplands" — Alena Kavka writes on Kate van der Drift's show at Pah Homestead

In Alex Plumb's moving image works, fact, fantasy and sonic detail imagine what reality might be.

Martin Rumsby has passed. We remember the pioneering film-maker, writer, programmer and champion of New Zealand experimental film.

This side or that side, or almost. Standing by is an online exhibition of three video works by Richard Orjis, Emily Parr, and Janaína Moraes, accompanied by an essay by Alys Longley.

Three regular contributors to CIRCUIT, Tessa Laird, Simon Palenski, and Becky Hemus, select an animated work from CIRCUIT's catalogue and share their thoughts about it. Featuring works by Brit Bunkley, Jill Kennedy, and Jae Hoon Lee.

Ten artist videos on CIRCUIT using poetry, text and waiata as material and inspiration for moving image works and cine-poems.

In this in-depth essay, Hamish Win considers the art of Sonya Lacey, whose work, he argues, uses "noise"—information’s excess or supplemental qualities—as a productive method through which to convey meaning.

Three new texts by Ōtepoti-based writers, John Ward Knox, Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Rārua, Rangitāne ō Wairau, Ngāti Takihiku), and Jessica Koroneho Hinerangi Thompson-Carr (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngāpuhi) in response to Shannon Te Ao's installation at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, what was or could be today (again).

Originally conceived as a response to Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, a group show of 300 artworks by 110 Māori artists at Auckland Art Gallery, this essay by artist Rangituhia Hollis grew into a personal reflection on Māori experience of the post-colonial past, present, and possible future.

As we welcome James Charlton to CIRCUIT, we present this catalogue essay by Mark Williams on Charlton's 2020 installation THROWN. Originally commissioned by Te Uru, the essay explores the resonance of Charlton's recent work in a time of environmental breakdown and artificial intelligence.