Applications for Creative NZ Residency

2 August 2006

Call for Applications for Creative New Zealand Gallipoli Residency

Applications are now open to artists wishing to apply for the 2007 Creative New Zealand Gallipoli Residency.

The residency programme, announced by Prime Minster Helen Clark on Anzac day, gives the recipient the opportunity to spend four months hosted by Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University in Gallipoli, Turkey. It is envisaged up to ten residencies will be offered over the next few years.

The aim is for the artists in residence to produce work which projects a new perspective on the site of a battle which was a seminal event in shaping the nationhood of both Turkey and New Zealand.

Applications are sought from established artists across all forms of arts practice, however, for the 2007 residency, the following disciplines will be prioritised:

 Ceramics  Painting  Dance  Theatre  Photography  Sculpture  Writing/Playwriting  Filmmaking (Experimental Moving Image) & Interdisciplinary Visual Arts

Further information is available on Creative New Zealand’s website.

Inaugural recipient Gisborne multi-discipline artist Derek Lardelli left to take up the residency last weekend, 90 years to the day that his father William left the shores of New Zealand to fight in World War I

“My first reaction to the residency was to take a step back and think that this was where our dad had gone, to that side of the world,”Lardelli said.

“I will be drawing on his experiences, on what I remember.

“As kids I remember helmets that we had at home and little things like that, an old used grenade. They were put in toy boxes and we played with them. It wasn’t until later on you realise and think ‘holy heck, this is where these guys really were’. They lived amongst the dead for months on end. Basically they were submerged in mud.”

As an artist proficient in a variety of artforms – carving, painting, sculpture, ta moko, and composition among them – Derek is keeping an open mind on what direction his creativity will move in once he reaches Gallipoli.

“It’s not about intellectualising it, it’s about feeling it. Once that happens then whatever talent pool comes through to the fore, that’s what I’ll use. It will be mixed up. Obviously there will be waiata, there will be ta moko and there will be creation of three dimensional artworks or painting. They’ll be all inter-related but how they come out, I’m not sure.”

Applications for the 2007 residency close on 29 September 2006

ENDS

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