Exhibition reviews
![A heart-shaped island seen from above in a grey-green sea](/images/1050x660/images/artists/Susu_Coco-and-Aiai-_2021-2022_CIRCUIT-1.jpg)
Skin in craters like the moon
Skin in craters like the moon
Samuel Te Kani responds to Skin in craters like the moon, an exhibition at Te Tuhi of recent works by Tāmaki Makaurau-based, Taiwanese (Han, Min-nan) artist Susu 蘇子誠 that explored associations between language and memory across virtual and physical worlds.
![Two groups of men stand on either side of barbed wire in a forest. One side wears military uniforms.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Alanis-Obomsawin-Kanehsatake270-3.jpg)
To move between: Alanis Obomsawin
To move between: Alanis Obomsawin
Layne Waerea responds to To move between: Healing and Resistance, an exhibition of work by Abenaki Nation filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin, presented at Artspace Aotearoa.
![A curved screen suspended from the ceiling shows an image of two children on a sofa examining a phone.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/1-Installation-view,-Rosalind-Nashashibi,-Denim-Sky-(2018-22),-The-Physics-Room,-Otautahi-Christchurch,-2023-CIRCUIT-web.jpg)
The air, like a stone
The air, like a stone
Hamish Win writes on The air, like a stone, an exhibition at The Physics Room that brought together a new commission by Ōtautahi-based artist Emma Fitts with a feature-length work by the London-based painter and filmmaker Rosalind Nashashibi.
![A film plays in a dark screening room; the screen depicts a view of a car's rear vision mirror showing arrow signs on a road at night](/images/1050x660/images/posts/1-Grant-Priest_CAN_Enjoy_2023_PhotoCheskaBrown_CIRCUIT-web.jpeg)
Road Toll
Road Toll
"The road as escape, the road as gendered independence and virility, as freedom. The road as an awfully white, awfully landed marker of progress and moral good." — Lachlan Taylor considers Grant Priest's recent exhibition CAN at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space.
![A titled film screen in a darkened room, the image shows a panoramic view of rocky hills overlaid with digitally rendered half moon shapes.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/1-Installation-view-of-Sorawit-Songsataya,-Shoulders-of-Giants-(2023)_Image-Justin-Spiers_CIRCUIT.jpg)
The act of reciprocity with the living land
The act of reciprocity with the living land
Hana Pera Aoake writes on Sorawit Songsataya's solo exhibition Nirun at the University of Otago's Hocken Gallery.
![Three billboards with black text on a yellow background read "recovery time is labour time," affixed to the exterior of a steel building with one bright pink wall.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Simon-Yuill,-Recovery-Time-is-Labour-Time,-202023-(installation-view,-Reeves-Road).-Series-of-three-billboard-prints-and-a-digital-poster.-Photo-by-Sam-Hartnett.jpg)
Enabling Phrases, Spaces, Places
Enabling Phrases, Spaces, Places
"In here, space is soft. Like blocking a lightbulb with your fingers, the walls betray an illuminated, epidermal glow." — Alena Kavka discusses Who can think, what can think at Te Tuhi
![A hand made of ice gives the thumbs up. Vaporous icy mist arises from the hand](/images/1050x660/images/posts/James-Oram-Currency-still.jpg)
"The water in the container, that’s our bodies on display".
"The water in the container, that’s our bodies on display".
Hamish Win writes on James Oram's recent exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, By Spectral Hands.
![A video game called Brain Island is displayed on an LCD monitor. In front is a blue joystick. Behind the monitor is a series of digital images from the game which are high gloss but whose content indistinct](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Installation-Shot_Brain-Island-Hyperreal-City-_2019_Xi-Li_CIRCUIT-1664411648.jpg)
Ritual of feeling
Ritual of feeling
In the colonial grandeur of Pah Homestead, Xi Li's Brain Island simulates a pulsating futuristic fantasy
Taking a line for a walk
Taking a line for a walk
Connie Brown writes on Sam Hamilton's installation at Artspace Aotearoa, Te Moana Meridian (2022)
![](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Rachael-Rakena-Ko-te-wai-he-wai-ora-2021.jpg)
Overlap and Unfurl
Overlap and Unfurl
Māori Moving Image ki Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the latest chapter in the Māori Moving Image exhibition series, is sensitive to the mauri of materials and place.
![An art installation featuring a central square object onto which animated images are projected. Around the periphery audiences watch the different works.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Installation-view-of-Otherwise-image-worlds-2022-Te-Uru-2022.jpg)
24 Hours Tāmaki: 2022 Edition
24 Hours Tāmaki: 2022 Edition
Dangerous dating, ESP, and community video: a quick-fire round up of moving image activity around Auckland's galleries.
![A person stands in front of a large video installation in a dark gallery that is illuminated by the 5 videos shown in this photo. All of the screens are at different heights, some coming up from the floor and some suspended from the ceiling.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Alicia-Frankovich_Atlas-Antitaxonomies-2022.jpg)
An Indifferent World
An Indifferent World
Alicia Frankovich’s Atlas of Anti-Taxonomies at the Christchurch Art Gallery picks apart the desire to categorise, classify, and impose order on the natural world.
![Through a hole we see a circular view of a tiny bottle being lowered into water](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Louie-Zalk-Neale-Masons-Screen-2022.jpg)
3 New Works in a Year of Protest and Pandemic
3 New Works in a Year of Protest and Pandemic
Louie Zalk-Neale, Gabriel White, and Jamie Berry showed new work on Masons Screen in Wellington's CBD while people protested against the vaccine mandates, and Aotearoa tipped in and out of lockdowns.
![Sunlight streams into an installation on a grassy field which looks like a film set of a scene. We see an unmade bed with white linen against the only two existing walls](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Georgew-Watson_Kotiro-Emepaea_2021_CIRCUIT-3.jpg)
Those who have never dived so, do not know the sea
Those who have never dived so, do not know the sea
The colonial villa and its attendant myths of empire are collapsed by George Watson in her exhibition of new video and sculpture at Te Uru, Kōtiro, Emepaea.
![Installation view of 12 TV screens on walls near a balcony](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Rachael-Rakena_Ko-te-wai-he-wai-ora_2021_CIRCUIT-1647896435.jpg)
Mauri and the Spirit of Art in Te Wai Pounamu
Mauri and the Spirit of Art in Te Wai Pounamu
Kai Tāhu collaborate with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery on three exhibitions Hurahia Ana Kā Whetu: Unveiling the Stars, He Reka Te Kūmara, and Paemanu: Tauraka Toi—A Landing Place, in "one epic and epochal mahi toi responding to mana whenua".
![A steamy window in a wooden frame. There are two hand prints in the steam and a pair of lips.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/_DSF6007.jpg)
An Exercise in Vital Materialism, Rage-as-Orgasm, and Spirited Disillusionment
An Exercise in Vital Materialism, Rage-as-Orgasm, and Spirited Disillusionment
Samuel Te Kani reviews Artspace Aotearoa's annual new artists show, CRUEL OPTIMISM.
![Two similar images of a weather measuring station on a mountain top have been pushed over and graffitied. Both photos have rounded edges at the top of the image and are backed by a beige green solid colour background.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/bridget_reweti_1.jpg)
Bridget Reweti's Illustrated Shards
Bridget Reweti's Illustrated Shards
The exhibition Pōkai Whenua, Pōkai Moana at the Hocken Gallery showed new lens-based work created during Bridget Reweti's time as the Frances Hodgkins Fellow in Ōtepoti.
![Inside a lift, screen showing Kate Moss's face with animated figures overlaying it.](/images/1050x660/images/posts/megan_dunn_image_processors.jpg)
The Threats and Seductions of Mass Media
The Threats and Seductions of Mass Media
Emma Ng spends some screen time at Image Processors: Artists in the Medium – A Short History 1968–2020 at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi.
![A woman with a blonde bob has an animals tail coming out of her mouth](/images/1050x660/images/posts/Marianna-Simnett-Blood-in-My-Milk-CIRCUIT-web.jpg)
CREATURE, Marianna Simnett
CREATURE, Marianna Simnett
"Simnett’s survival strategy is to examine trauma's cooled, black, liquid residue, morphing the after-image into something new and darkly inhabited." Mark Williams visits Marianna Simnett's exhibition at City Gallery Wellington.