Spirit Fire

Frankie Chu, Jacob Hamilton, Juliet June, Kim Lu, Megumi Shimizu, Ryan Sun, Qing Yang

Tuitui Art Space, Auckland

7 – 14 June, 2020

Auckland Festival of Photography Satellite exhibition

Response by Yvonne Shaw for PhotoForum, 28 June 2020

Small galleries and studio spaces possess characteristics that are reminiscent of motel rooms and cinemas. There is intimacy in such places as well as a sense of freedom from tradition. New stories can be written. Old stories can be told in new ways.

In Tuitui Art Space, one wall becomes a cinematic screen, and the centre of the room is the stage for an assortment of characters. A soft curtain suffused with window light separates the studio from the working space of the artists. It is a gallery, a cinema and a theatre all at the same time.

Ryan Sun’s assemblage of protagonists consists of constructed and found sculptures. They could be a family, seated around an invisible fire, or a gathering of like-minded people drawn together by a common cause. The work is titled Eyes of Hundun. There are invisible lines of sight between each sculpture. I imagine conversations between these characters. Who will speak first? Will everyone have their turn to speak? There is more to these characters than first meets the eye. Some appear soft but have hard elements beneath a soft exterior. They invite touch.

Above this familial group, Kim Lu’s photographs hover like sentinels. There is a sense of guardianship in her images. Her series, The past tense, is preoccupied with memory. Lu writes “When anything happens, there will be a mark, a mark that is deeply engraved in our minds. It may be buried but never will be erased.” The photographs, installed at different heights, evoke layers of memories. However they don’t overwhelm the viewer. They are delicate, balanced, holding space.

There are lines of sight too, between Lu’s work and the photographs on the opposite wall by Jacob Hamilton. A Letter to Self is a self portrait of the artist but we see him, as if from a long way off. We see him mostly through the landscapes that he inhabits. We observe him via his signs and symbols and also, we see who he is as an artist by what he chooses to leave out as much as by what he chooses to include in his images.

Adjacent to Hamilton’s photographs is the sculpture Sounds Harmless by Juliet June. It expands upwards, folded and stretched and convoluted. At its base it gives birth to itself, producing more convoluted selves. Ideas have a life of their own, becoming tangible, gaining in power and momentum. The title of this work contains an unrecorded question mark. It seems to allude to the ambiguities of speeches, agreements, resolutions.

The four remaining pieces in this exhibition are projected video works. The projection spans two walls so that the moving images appear at times like pages of a book.

In Collaborate with Bird by Megumi Shimizu, figures appear briefly in a verdant landscape. They seem in tune with their surroundings, giving their breath to instruments so that the work becomes a call or a song. These players stand on the green earth for a few beats of time, then fade out. The land remains.

Woundknots by Frankie Chu draws our attention to a silent dance of hands. Two hands spin and twist a cord in space, gradually forming a knot around one hand. The other hand keeps returning to attend to the knot, moulding it and tugging at it. Eventually it becomes a little globe, a suspended world. Both hands play with it, dangle it, spin it, dip it in paint. We make art with our bodies, we make worlds from our obsessions, our wounds, our deepest connections.

Qing Yang’s video, At the same time I also moved the boundaries of the sea, and We stand on the beach with our eyes closed in the summer of 2019 by Ryan Sun were filmed on the same day, in two different countries.

Yang’s video is silent. A lone figure in England faces the sea, her skirt flapping in the wind. The sea rolls, beats, retreats. In the Tuitui Studio the projector emits a gentle hum and artists talk in low voices. The figure runs to the sea, then away, then – a return. This goes on for a long time. Absence. Presence. In front of a soundless sea.

Sun’s work is filmed in New Zealand. It is windy on this coast as well. We hear the crackle of the wind and the thrumming of the sea. Several figures enter the landscape one by one, striding or dancing their way along the sand. Stopping to face the horizon with arms stretched out. They are a family facing a loved one across an ocean. They are having a conversation.

After the long period of lockdown Tuitui Studio was a welcoming space that provoked curiosity and hope with a dynamic installation of works. The statement for Spirit Fire posed the question: “In the time of COVID-19 what is the relationship between the artist and the world?” The exhibition seems to answer; to make lines of connection between us, to keep facing each other, to stay involved, even in difficult times.

This exhibition was planned and organized by the Original Art Association. OA is an association for contemporary artists, which aims to provide the concrete resources needed for working and emerging artists to thrive.

Yvonne Shaw is an Auckland-based photographer, and lecturer in photography at Unitec Institute of Technology.