Cinemal: the Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film is artist, writer, and senior lecturer at the Victorian College of Arts at the University of Melbourne Tessa Laird’s latest book.
Inquisitive, passionate, and attentive is Laird as she traces the ways in which experimental films mimic the mystery and magic of animals, examining how they’re depicted in film and the animal qualities that transpire in cinema, like scratching and sniffing, vibrant colours, and voices.
With a focus on films from Aotearoa, Australia, and South America, Laird’s energetic, observant, and illustrative prose brings together personal anecdotes with art theory and philosophy. In identifying these cinematic animal tropes, readers are encouraged to rethink what it means to be human and our own animal nature, reminding us that we, too, are animals.
To launch Cinemal, there will be a special screening of films by Nova Paul, Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, Sriwhana Spong, Tina Stefanou, and Peter Waples-Crowe with Glynn Urquhart, featuring a live soundtrack by Phil Dadson tonight at the Audio Foundation in association with Melanie Roger Gallery.
Sofia had a kōrero with Tessa Laird about Cinemal: the Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film and the film screening tonight.
Sof had a kōrero with Tessa Laird about her latest book, Cinemal: the Becoming-Animal of Experimental Film, and the book’s launch tonight at Audio Foundation.
And Maya caught up with artist Reece King about his current exhibition at Anna Miles Gallery, Drop Sheet Snow Angel.
Reece King is a Tāmaki based painter, currently working from his Ōtepoti studio after being awarded the 2025 Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. His embodied practice delves into the materiality of painting, diving head first into a material lead practice—in which the painting and its fleeting figures unveil themself through the act of painting. With King looking to painting as a kind of absorption, an absorption of his surroundings that find their way into the works themself.
His current exhibition at Anna Miles, Drop Sheet Snow Angel continues in King's embodied practice. Presenting a body of paintings both acrylic on canvas, as well as the incorporation of coloured pastels. A beautiful dance between organic movement and mechanical geometric imagery. A playful and colourful world which showcases King's approach to paintings, not just as a practice, but rather a way of being in the world.
Maya had a kōrero with Reece about the show, and overall Practice.
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