How can photography be useful in this precarious era of climate crisis and social injustice?

 This question is the key catalyst both of my art practice and my work as an educator. I am  deeply committed to working collaboratively in the imagining of new futures for cultural production.   I am a lens-based artist of Jewish and Cornish descent. I have very recently relocated to the United Kingdom after living and working for many years in Aotearoa-New Zealand. I work in an expanded documentary framework, using lens-based tools of the digital and surveillance age to think about the problematic and complicated nature of land use, resource extraction and the amplification of marginalised and polyphonic voices.   In my work I unearth and manipulate archival material, combining it with my own moving image & still photography. Science-fiction and empirical feminist thinking are cornerstones for making. The co-opting of the documentary form into more activist and resistant outcomes have become central processes in my practice, and I lean on the writings of  Donna Haraway, Erica Balsom and Ariella Azoulay amongst others. I think about walking as method for generating embodied knowledge, and about ways to employ a “listening” camera as a research tool in the service of community. As an educator my focus is on empowerment and making space for the under-represented in the classroom and curriculum.
 I am a founder member of Tangent Collective (Aotearoa) a member of PLACE Collective (U.K) and creative partner at 35a (U.K). 
An Age of Iron. HD video and digital photographic work.
 
"There is a certain conjuring of chaos through the juxtaposition of landscape and failure. But this is not all. A framing of agency is presented in a way that the Afrofuturists know. An object, a spaceship, or a relic from another era orbits and the merging of past, future and present offer a speculative subversion of the documentary form. Out-takes from the world and (science) fiction signal in the glowing translucent wakas heading out to the cosmos, a reconciliation of a future which is both bright and distant."                            David Cowlard. 2020.
An Age of Iron 

These works ask the audience to consider land rights, resource extraction, ownership, and our relationships with more-than-human materials and place.

Installation at rm gallery in Aotearoa


Pyrite (2017) 

 Digital composite. 600x400mm
 What does such prolonged mineral extraction and the re-introduction of that material into the global manufacturing chain mean for the mauri (or spirit) of the land, and for our planetary relationships? 

4 years living by the Whau

2018. 1200 x 500 mm digital photographic diptych 

These photographs are a visual compression of the four years spent by myself and my daughter living close to the mouth of the River Whau in Tāmaki Makaurau. The walk down to the mangroves was a regular ritual, and we grew to anticipate and revel in the varying heights of the tide, the presence of the cormorant, the suspicious kingfishers. King tides were cause for great excitement, and torchlight night visits. These tides often also brought a range of flotsam and jetsam; usually by mid-morning the next day locals had cleared these bits of plastic and Styrofoam into big piles for us all to take away. In the summer the mud comes alive with thousands of tiny crabs. Sitting very still on the jetty lulls them into sufficient confidence to leave their homes; when we stand up, the whole mudflat shimmers for a moment as they all race back inside.

The accretion of signification over time is a key characteristic of photography and one that is central to my own practice. Repetition and ritual are tools I utilise to activate Goethe’s principle of “empathic observation”. I see these repeated returns and recordings as acts of collaborative place-making; synchronicity and the animus mundi are co-authors in the resulting work.

Co-orbital photographs and film works
This project exists in several spaces; as a set of photographs and moving image viewed in physical space, and as a virtual book that lives online.  The overarching ideas that frame the work are those of tapu and noa; for Māori these words express a sense of sacred and earthly states. I have been very interested in the ways that we come into contact with these conditions, that we activate and are activated by them in our daily lives. I am also interested in the possibility that these are dynamic and fluid states; that there is a flow of energy between them and that human action can recalibrate them. Particularly I feel that protocols or covenants exist between humans and the natural world, and that there are myriad ways that these covenants may be breached and healed. There are therefore ecological & geo-political aspects to the project. The specific site I chose to focus on in order to crystallise some of these ideas is Grafton Gully. This is an area of the city that I have lived near and known for most of my years in Auckland, and one that has had carved into it our shifting values. The Gully has transitioned from a bush clad waterway into cemeteries for the early colonial settlers, a sports field and now a transit system and Business School.   The way I have accessed the site owes a lot to the Situationists of the 1950’s. Guy Debord and his fellow artist-activists reclaimed urban areas by way of the derive, or aimless wander, allowing chance to open up possibilities beyond the intentions of corporate and civic planning. The other aspect of my process involves collaboration with object. A lot is owed here to Jane Bennett and her theory of vibrant matter. The Pataphysicists too believed that objects have an animus or energy and that they will speak through the artist. This thinking is prevalent amongst non-Western societies, and particularly in previous work with Māori communities I have experienced this esoteric communication directly. My intention here is to work with place and object to reframe lost or marginal narratives. A co-authoring of the image with its subject and then with a viewer is I hope what gives the work its agency.
Further writing on this project: pilgrim's progress blog 

Artist statement.
The concept of tapu is one that can easily be relegated to historical or religious spheres of interest, as if a sacred state cannot co-exist with our modern daily life. States of tapu and noa (the sacred and the earthly) are not side-notes to our lives however. Knowingly or unknowingly we can breach the fragile covenants that exist in human relations and between humans and the natural and spiritual world. These breaches might occur at a personal level, or on a more global and ecological one. It has been suggested that tapu and noa are not fixed states, but fluid and non-lineal, and that human action and ritual are essential in achieving a balance between them. As a covenant can be broken, so can it be mended.

Becky Nunes. 2014

Vesta. 
1500x1160 c-type print     Edition of 1 + 1 x A.P      
Ceres  
60x60 c-type print,  Edition of 3 + 1 x A.P 

Bellona            
60x60 c-type print, Edition of 3 + 1x A.P 


Vesta 
1500x1160 c-type print, Edition of 1 + 1 x A.P 
        

Astrae   
1500x1160 c-type print Edition of 1 + 1 x A.P

Chamber    
40cm diameter Gold Fibre Silk print Edition of 3 + 1x A.P


Spiral   
40cm diameter Gold Fibre Silk print Edition of 3 + 1x A.P

Installation documentation

Installation documentation

Tongariro Power

Tongariro Power was shot in 1970 for the NZ National Film Unit by Martin Barriball, and directed by Conon Fraser. Their energetic and well-crafted film documents the immense feat of engineering and construction of the Tongariro Power Scheme (TPS), channeling hundreds of waterways from their existing trajectories into the tunnels and pipes that feed the hydro-electric dam systems.

 I have extracted many small moments from Fraser’s film, allowing them to build into their own cinematic narratives and tropes, riffing on the Hollywood cowboy, B-grade sci-fi, 70’s porn and Freudian subtexts. This sequence of extracted frames proposes a feminized and fetishized reading of the male gaze, re-directed as it is onto itself.

 Accompanying these appropriations the zine contains a series of accidentally erotic portraits extracted from the film. This zine celebrates the unashamed machismo of the modernist era. Large scale engineering projects, big rigs and dangerous underground tunneling were the domain of these men within the context of pioneering post-colonial New Zealand. The extraction and re-contextualising of these portraits opens up voyeuristic hetero and homoerotic subtexts alongside questions of cultural identity and land commodification in Aotearoa New Zealand.

 

























Film projects
Ann Shelton left her hometown of Timaru in the 80’s on a mission. Her seminal project Redeye captured the zeitgeist of Auckland in the 90’s, and catapulted her to public notoriety. Ann has made many rich and complex bodies of work that unearth local mythologies, “ghosted” stories and characters and narratives previously written out of history. This Air is a Material deepens the understanding of this important artist & her work. With interviews, high quality footage of Ann’s artwork and archival imagery, the documentary not only illuminates her practice but also the small towns, urban myths and creative communities that shaped it.


2016. 52' HD Video
Produced and directed by Becky Nunes.

This short film documents a site-specific performance choreographed and commissioned by Shelton as part of the Enjoy Feminisms series in 2015. The work celebrates Nancy Martin, a single academic and musician who in Wellington in 1957 became the first single woman to take out a mortgage. The house was designed by Frederick Ost, a German Jew refuge from Hitler’s Europe. Shelton talks about the house itself displacing photography in the performance that forms the heart of the project. Shelton commissioned a ghostwriter to write a contemporary narrative that obliquely refers to Martin’s life. The film brings together Shelton’s publication, A Spoonful of Sugar, the performance in the space and the spoken narrative.      

   
2015. 6' HD Video
Produced and directed by Becky Nunes.

The photo-book has enjoyed a meteoric rise in recent years. Combined with on-demand publishing it now offers photographers unprecedented and often unmediated access to audiences for their work. Made by Tangent Photo Collective, this short documentary charts some of the key moments in the history of the photo book in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The film, however, foregrounds the now: a slice of contemporary book making in the early 21st Century. It aims to intrigue, inspire and provoke debate around a medium that, in the Pacific at least, is still in its teenage years.


 2015. 6' HD Video
Produced and directed by Tangent Photography Collective.
  • Mau Moko: The World of Māori Tattoo

“These are impressive and moving images, which deserve exhibition simply in their own right. More than that, they place moko in a contemporary context, expressing the art as a living, relevant force in our culture and not some struggling remnant of a distant past. They strongly counter the negative connotations of moko.”

Hamish Keith, Art Historian. 2009In December 2007 Penguin Books published “Mau Moko, The World Of Maori Tattoo”. The result of several years’ research by Te Awekotulu and her team, the book explores the cultural and spiritual histories and legacies of Ta Mōko, and relates the stories of its wearers and practitioners. “Mau Moko” was authored by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Linda Waimarie Nikora with contemporary portraits photographed by myself.

Mau Moko is a world-leading and internationally published publication detailing the history of Māori Ta Moko or cultural tattoo.My visual research took a total of 3 years to complete to the point of publication. It involved the creation of project-specific subject releases that dealt with cultural sensitivities around representation, as well as significant independent travel, subject liaison and the delivery of consistently high-quality photography.

This archive of work now held in the permanent collection of Auckland Museum.

Publication by Magnard Vuibert Delagrave April 2018. France print run: 20,000

Included by invitation in Tattoo group show: The Gewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts and Design) Switzerland. Sept-Mar 2013.

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. Feb-Sept 2014

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Oct 2014-Feb 2015





















Selected recent exhibitions, publications and screenings

2023:                                     

Clouded vision: strategies of occlusion in photographic representations of the other-than-human. In: (Un)Common Worlds III Navigating and Inhabiting Biodiverse Anthropocenes, Oct 4-6th, Oulu, Finland. https://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/id/eprint/8015                                        

AirPlace: Interdisciplinary approaches to regeneration & social sustainability. Paper presented at Applying Education in a Complex World, AMPS/Sheridan College, Toronto Apr 26-30 https://amps-research.com/conference/applying-education/

Resonance. Group exhibition with PLACE Collective at Timber Festival, June 7-9th 2023                      

2022
DeComm C20 Group exhibition at X-Church, Gainsborough. Sept 16-30th    

Hikoi Wairua. HD Video, 6” looped. Screened as part of a presentation at Creative Communities international festival and conference, Staffordshire University. May 19th 2022

Hikoi Wairua. HD Video, 6” looped Presentation of documentary work-in-progress to SMUT as part of Portland Inn Project

This Air is a Material published by Bloomsbury Video Library https://www.bloomsburyvideolibrary.com/video?docid=BNU-Thisair&tocid=BNU-Thisair_6312238644112&st=this+air+is+a+materia

2021                                        

We Look to the Future With Progressive Ideals. Group show as part of 6-month residency, Thistle Hall Lightbox, Wellington, N.Z

2020                          

An Age of Iron.  HD Video, 8' looped.

RM Gallery, Auckland March 4th - 21st

The Water Sustains Us: Production of collaborative student exhibition produced online for Auckland Festival of Photography May 30-June 10th

2019                                       

Visual Citizenship. Visual politics and documentary practice. Paper presentation at AAANZ Conference, Auckland University Dec 5-10th

15 Minutes of Fame – Warhol, Facebook and the Work of Luke Willis Thompson Paper presentation at SPE National Conference, Cleveland, Ohio. Mar 6-10th.

Recipient of the 2019 SPE International Conference Grant for highest ranked peer-reviewed paper.

2018                                       

Co-opting the Apparatus. The lens as feminist tool for socially engaged art practice in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Paper presentation at Aesthetics, Politics and Histories, the Social Context of Art. AAANZ Conferences, RMIT Melbourne Dec 5-10th

This Air is a Material screening & artist talk: Christchurch City Art gallery. April 17th

Triangulated Agency and Co-authorship in a Photographic Practice. ArtMatters April 2018 published by Auckland City Art Gallery

2017                                        

Pyrite. (B. Nunes. 2017 600x400 digital composite/Dibond) Finalist and Travelling exhibition: Wallace Art Awards

This Air is a Material screening & paper presentation: ARC Theatre, National Film and sound Archive of Australia. Women in the Creative arts Research Conference, Australia National University Canberra 10-12th August 2017.

Collaborative Processes and key thematics in the film This Air is a Material – The work of Ann Shelton. Women in the Creative arts Research Conference, Australia National University Canberra 10-12th August 2017.

This Air is a Material screening: DocEdge Festival Auckland and Wellington May/June 2017

PAPERWORK group exhibition at DEMO Space March 23-26th

NEWPHOTOMEDIA Curated by Tangent as part of Auckland Festival of Photography group exhibition at DEMO Space June 6-12

Triangulated Agency and Co-authorship in a Photographic Practice paper presented at symposium:  Agency and Aesthetics: A symposium on the expanded field of photography. Auckland Art Gallery April 1 2017.

2016                                       

This Air is a Material feature documentary. Premiere screening and Director Q&A:  AAG November 27th. https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/event/the-air-is-a-material

Pictures on Paper Tangent film productions short film, screened at PhotoBook NZ March 2016 (Massey University)

Pictures on Paper Tangent film productions short film, screened at Obscura PhotoFestival, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia, August 2016