Liquid Body 01 Introductie

Moderated by exhibition curator Elyse Goldfinch, join us as we hear from designer Lloyd Mist, and contributing writers Azza Zein, Fayen d’Evie, Tara Heffernan and Tessa Laird.

The talk includes a tour of the interactive digital publication site, and readings from the writers, followed by conversations around Stefanou’s work and ideas that have been explored through the different texts.

'Tina Stefanou: You Can't See Speed' - Digital Publication Launch

Brett Graham's exhibition Wastelands opened at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in June 2025. Featuring a monumental sculpture of the same name that was commissioned for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, the haunting installation is expanded to include a new multi-channel video work, titled Whangamārino (2025). Re-working footage shot by news company Aukaha of a 2024 fire in the Whangamārino wetlands, Graham's new work adds layers of animation, personal history, and an ominous soundtrack.

The resulting installation addresses both the history of colonial exploitation and our contemporary ecological crisis. Over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land were confiscated by the colonial government following the Waste Lands Act (1858), the Waikato War (1863–64), and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863), with devastating consequences for tangata whenua and te taio. In this exhibition, Graham powerfully addresses the resulting degradation of the Waikato River and its surrounding wetlands, a precious resource and taonga for his iwi.

In this kōrero with Kathryn Graham, Brett discusses Wastelands, his earlier work Tai Moana Tai Tangata (2020), and presenting Wastelands at the Venice Biennale in 2024.

Episode 123: on Wastelands with Brett Graham

*CONTENT WARNING: Please note that this podcast includes discussions of suicide and genocide. Support is always available: Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636


Listen to our latest talk with artists Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Khaled Sabsabi and Ali Tahayori, from our current exhibition 'Five Acts of Love'. Take a deep dive into the discussions on their works, their practice and the ideas presented as part of the exhibition. This podcast was recorded as part of an Artist Talk at ACCA on Saturday 28 June 2025.

Image: Opening night, 'Five Acts of Love' 2025, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2025. Photograph: Carmen Zammit

Artist Talks: with Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Khaled Sabsabi and Ali Tahayori

How do moving image artists work with visual effects? In this follow up podcast to CIRCUIT Cast 123: Brett Graham, interviewer Kathryn Graham speaks to Sam Tozer from LOT23. They discuss Sam's work on Whangamārino, a six channel video by Brett  included as part of his installation The Wastelands at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Sam discusses the process of working with Brett, the digital challenges of adding visual effects to documentary footage and working through ‘impossible lenses’. 

List of topics:

0:20 How did you first get to know Brett? Sam discusses making one of Nat Tozer’s works (Erotic Geologies (2024)) and forging a mutual connection with Brett via Gow Langsford gallery, and the inclusion of a Fred Graham sculpture in the video. 

2.30: Sam describes the original documentary footage which Whangamārino is based on.  

3.25: The unusual size of the six screen video installation -  “11 times wider than it is high…immediately really exciting”.

4.00: What was the process of choosing not to use the original footage? 

4:30: Sam discusses ‘impossible lenses’, and the difference between showing The Wastelands in Venice in 2024 versus the 2025 Auckland Art Gallery installation which features the video work Whangamārino.

6:00: How LOT23 work with artists - technologically and learning about the artists' kaupapa, looking at previous works, examining narrative and aesthetic threads in existing works - “so we’re part of a continuum”

7 :00: The technical challenges of making a work “12 times wider than it’s high” at a resolution of 11,500 pixels wide

8:25: Brief discussion of unusual screen sizes in projects with Lisa Reihana and Nat Tozer 

10:00: More discussion of working at large scale, Kathryn makes anology of working on a mural and the impact of scale on the viewer

12:30 Sam discusses beginning with grass, rock and trees as "touchpoints for a scale reference” Different lens sizes with a virtual camera. The process of creating natural environments. Using NASA Lidar data, using images of the actual sites in Brett’s video.

15:00 Working with Brett - suggesting inclusion of other details, thinking about depth of field “you get to play God with it…to create something larger than life…that is hyper real”. 

18:00 “There’s all sorts of Easter eggs of meaning…” Discussion of Brett’s personal references to whenua in the work.

19:30 Ends

Episode 124: Sam Tozer on Impossible Lenses

“The smile goes away the longer they experience the work” - John Vea

Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image.

In this conversation, Joe meets Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-born, Ōtautahi-based artist John Vea, whose work uses humour as a device to draw viewers into deeper dialogues around Pasifika identity.

Image: John Vea, Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025) (detail)

List of Topics:

00:00: Introduction

01:34: What is Talanoa? John - “a holistic way of experiencing information... a learning mechansim”.

03.20: On the video work Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025)' included in the exhibition Ini Mini Mani Mou (2025) at the Christchurch Art Gallery. John describes the genesis of the work; coming from the real life experience of being mistaken for someone else. In the video, friends “narrate their experiences of these stereotypical events. “It’s funny… it’s not sort of funny”.

05.50: Was the humour in the video intentional? John - “We’re used to laughing at our trauma, which is sad cos we glaze over it... especially when we're kids”.

07:30: John on the nature of Pacific humour generally; and then on integrating it into his work. He discusses the 2019 installation If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back? shown in Sydney. Humour as a 'Trojan horse'.

10:00: On adjusting a work for different social and class contexts "If it has to be subtle... because of the community, then I'll change it up". The difficulty of reinstalling works in a new space, a new context.

12:30: The line between poetic and humorous. How does John "walk that line?" John - “It starts off quite heavy”.

14:30: Joe on the effect on him as an audience member of watching Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? (2025). John discusses the common Pasifika experience of changing one's name to “fit in”.

16:30: On site specificity; and showing the video Is your name Siliga? No? Oh, you’re Pati? to Christchurch audiences.

17:00: Is the current political climate influencing new work? John - “It's sad that my practice is almost relying on trauma“.

18:00: On John's recent move to Otautahi from Tāmaki Makaurau, being Pasifika in Otautahi.

20:30: John on making Tribute to American Samoa and Tonga (2009); combining sculpture and video, objects as projection surface. The story of the making of the work, and the first installation releasing salt water from the sea into the gallery.

24:00: On conceptualising the work and discarding various sculptural options during this process.

25:30: “Is it a problem if someone comes out of a work and just goes, oh, that was so funny, and then that's it?" John discusses how viewers absorb the work the more time they spend with it.

26:30: Using the body in John’s videos. On the work Finish this week off and that’s it! (2009). John - "I wanted (the audience) to just experience working for two hours... not working in terms of the physical, but... to make them sit there and engage with the work for that amount of time".

28:00: John discusses how the audiences limited attention span for the two hour work is analogous to the lack of interest in acknowledging the cost of labour on Pasifika bodies, and the poor wages for this work.

29:00 On eating below the poverty line for six weeks whilst making Finish this week off and that’s it!

30:00 Comedy as a vehicle for hard conversations. Joe - “...what's interesting is the uncomfortable laughter... is that something you purposefully go for?"

31:00 Joe - "Is it okay for people to laugh at your work?" John - "Humour is welcomed in my practice. But expect the humour to be wiped off your face once you experience the works longer."

Episode 123: Comic Release with John Vea

*CONTENT WARNING: Please note that this podcast includes discussions of genocide. Support is always available: Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

‘We need talk’, is a bold new series of free public conversations that bring together artists, thinkers, and cultural leaders to explore the art world from every angle.

For our first event, acclaimed artist Tschabalala Self joined ACCA’s Artistic Director & CEO Myles Russell-Cook for a conversation on art, identity, and the future. 

A new ACCA initiative, ‘We need to talk’ is a space for spirited exchange, fresh ideas, and unexpected connections.

We Need to Talk: Artist Talk with Tschabalala Self and Myles Russell-Cook

Voice recordings of Erwin Olaf produced by Linon Medien

April Fool

Cinenova BFI Digital Access Project Project Manager Job Description Audio Version

"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail" 

In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body. 

00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt 

1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure. 

3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?" 

5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.

7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton

8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.

9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting. 

12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha -  "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".

13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".

15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke". 

16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.

17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself? 

18:10: Social media as influence

19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024). 

21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".

22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere. 

23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery. 

24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome. 

26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries? 

26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".

27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation. 

28:58: END

Episode 124: Samantha Cheng

"(HIV) doesn’t have agency, it’s not alive like we are, it’s just a piece of programming, but.. in empathising with it, I have gained a greater respect for it" - John Walter

In this podcast Mark Williams talks to John Walter, a British artist exhibiting in Aotearoa as part of the group show Queer Algorithms now on at Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland until 2 May. Resisting labels, binaries and the need to categorise, Queer Algorithms is conceived from an intersectional viewpoint where gender fluidity and identities are understood as always multifarious and in flux. Walter discusses his work in the show which includes the video 'A Virus walks into a bar' (2018).

Episode 83 An Interview With John Walter

CIRCUIT CAST is a podcast produced by CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image, interviewing contemporary artists about recent exhibitions and how they approach their practice. CIRCUIT is Aotearoa/New Zealand's leading distributor of artists' moving image works. 

www.circuit.org.nz.

Episode 83 An Interview With John Walter

CIRCUIT CAST

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