New exhibition opening at The Physics Room

Towards doing more

8 March – 13 April 2014

Opening Friday 7 March, 6pm

Artist Talk Saturday 8 March, 2pm

Shannon Te Ao, the only New Zealand artist selected to exhibit in the prestigious and currently controversial Biennale of Sydney, will open a new solo exhibition Towards doing more at The Physics Room, next Friday 7 March.

Towards doing more will feature a new performance and installation as well as a series of video works to be shown sequentially over the duration of the exhibition: Untitled (After Rakaihautu) (8 - 23 March), Untitled (McCahon House studies) (25 March – 6 April) and Untitled (Andersons Bay studies) (8 – 13 April). Each of the works in this trilogy is grounded in a precise location and its history.

Te Ao has developed an approach that combines informed research with direct, physical responses to a site to retrace the complex histories and relationships associated to a specific place or situation.

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Material elements brought to The Physics Room will be used to initiate a new performance work that also acts as a rejoinder to Te Ao’s previous exchanges within the gallery context, reflecting on the social and linguistic models common to this space.

A new publication, Untitled: Three works, will accompany the exhibition, featuring documentation alongside writing from Christina Barton, Caterina Riva and Anna Marie White, and design by Bepen Bhana.

The Physics Room is pleased to be exhibiting Te Ao’s work for the first time in Christchurch.

Shannon Te Ao is an artist, writer and curator whose current research interests include performance and video art practices. The majority of Te Ao's recent artistic output has seen him investigating and responding to material drawn from Māori paradigms, testing the implications of alternative creative, social and linguistic models in relation to contemporary video art and other performative practices. He teaches at Massey University College of Creative Arts.

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