Plastic Maori?
Performance artists Hana Aoake and Piupiu-Maya Turei are marking Matariki with the show and installation Plastic (Parahitiki) at Glue Gallery, in Stafford St.
Plastic is an exploration of contemporary Maori culture and history, the artists say.
Both artists have been branded "Plastic Maoris", by their contemporaries, so intend to look at the concept of identity and what constitutes being Maori in contemporary New Zealand society, through the Glue Gallery work.
In creating such an event, Turei and Aoake aim to describe and reject their dislocation from their own culture, being "reborn' into the Maori New Year with a fresh idea of who they are and how they relate to their culture.
Performances start tomorrow at 7pm, then are on June 30 and July 1, 5, 6 and 7 between midday and 4pm. On July 8, times are midday to 8pm.
Nominees for $50,000 award
Auckland Art Gallery has released images of the nominees for the $50,000 Walters Prize.
The nominees are: Alicia Frankovich for Floor Resistance, a work that played with the audience and performer demarcations of an orchestra recital; Simon Denny for Introductory logic video tutorial, a fictional educational video; Kate Newby for Crawl out your window, a work that played with the context of its setting; and Sriwhana Spong for two films - Costume for a Mourner and Lethe-wards - that re-imagined a Diaghilev ballet.
The finalists' works will be exhibited at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki for three months from August 4 before the winner is announced.
The prize is awarded for a work of contemporary New Zealand art produced and exhibited during the past two years.
