Various Artists with Beth & Sofia

Chicken Poems is a a new body of collaborative and parallel work by artists and siblings Oscar and Sophie Bannan. The exhibition includes collage, photography, video and sculpture.

Artnow writes that ‘each work is conceived as a visual poem that explores radical intimacies with time, and the creation of meaning through image/object relationships. Thematically, their work explores rhythms of living such as cooking and food, domestic chores, personal ritual, familial and romantic relationships’.

For the exhibition, Sophie and Oscar have made a moving image work using existing dance films made of and by the siblings over the past thirty years.

Beth had a kōrero with Oscar and Sophie about Chicken Poems, which is showing at the Gus Fisher Gallery until the 10th of May.

Happy Valentines lovers <3

On Various Artists i tēnei rā...

Sofia spoke with artist Tony Guo about his current exhibition at Season Aotearoa, Swan Crash. 

Beth spoke with board members of LGBTQ+ writers festival Samesame but different, Pip Adam and Nathan Joe, about the programme this year. 

And for Stage Direction this week, Alice Canton spoke with artistic director of Auckland Arts Festival, Bernie Haldane. 

Samesame but different is Tāmaki Makaurau’s annual LGBTQ+ writers festival.

Launched in 2016 by writer Peter Wells, the goal for the festival is to be ‘an exciting event that makes people think about sexuality, difference and community, stretches their understanding, gives them a few laughs and creates a slightly magic space for two days in February’.

Pip Adam, author of Ockham-nominated novel Audition (2023), and Nathan Joe,  award-winning theatre-maker and performance poet, are both board members of Samesame but different.

Beth caught up with Pip and Nathan about the festival this year

Anto Yeldezian is a Tāmaki Makaurau based artist of Armenian heritage. His latest exhibition, Arena, is currently showing at Coastal Signs Gallery.

The works in Arena often play with bright and bold colours - often being mixed medium, with images, sketches and painting superimposed onto one another. Coastal Signs writes that in Anto’s paintings, ‘[. . . ] images from a myriad of sources are layered on top of one another and synthesized, very adeptly, into painterly tableau. 'The works in Arena are, as the title suggests, often organised around game boards – such as Snakes & Ladders and Noughts & Crosses – and representations of contested territories, both fictional and otherwise’.

Beth had a kōrero with Anto about Arena and his artistic process