One of art’s most valuable features is its ability to simultaneously reflect and project reality as seen, interpreted or imagined by both the artist and viewer. Whether grounded in a physical, visceral version of reality, or loosely attached to an abstract construct - it is a useful reminder that our own reality is only that which we allow ourselves to experience.
The reality of a Splore Odyssey has been explored in a range of ways by the artists whose work comprises the 2016 art programme. Artists seem particularly suited to the notion of an odyssey; a long, wandering, eventful quest in the pursuit of intellectual, spiritual or material wealth while frequently enduring hardship.
An artistic career is in many ways a creative odyssey, and the artwork presented at Splore promises an art adventure to take you places, near and far. Physically, emotionally and mentally - the perfect compliment to your own personal summer odyssey.
The work of Aaron Glasson and Celeste Beyers is great example of this. Their collaborative practice embraces installation and performance as a means to deliver their audience into an alternative space.
Taking you with them as they navigate an inter-dimensional narrative built around the central figure of Ernesto and his time-travelling friends, exploring parallel worlds and alternate realities.
Gary Silipa continues to widen the scope of that which we consider our own reality, through his work (Al) Ofa. This work is based on the smallest member of a Search & Rescue team called ‘The Gang’ who hail from the Heavenly Realms. It positions our place, our world, our planet, as a destination and not just a departure point. We are not at the beginning or the end but sit somewhere in between.
A number of works address the universal nature of travel and the phenomenon of travelling, where regardless of location we can find familiarity. While we may encounter juxtapostions of culture and custom, and clashes of contexts, we still acknowledge and understand universal relationships.
The relationship between ourselves, land and sea is one of these we seem to innately understand. Aaron McConchie’s work Through All is located where fresh water meets the sea, acknowledging the outlet and the aquatic path that leads across the land. It is symbolic of the start of inland exploration and discovery; waterways like this enabling travel, movement and the relocation of life.
The relationship between ourselves and the unknown however is one we are not so comfortable with. We tend to go two ways, either looking for distraction and seeking to avoid it, or we walk towards it and look for opportunity to make the unknown known. We search for belonging in many different ways, we look for security in many different places, and we long for understanding in the face of existential uncertainty.
Aoife Banville, Hubbub and Lara Fischel-Chisholm seek to address this with works that explore a sense of scale, bringing our own place in the wider universe into perspective, and challenging the macro focus that we tend to bring to the table when we think about ourselves and the lives we live.
Quantum by the collective Hubbub employs the premise that all we know about our universe, fits into a network of Spacetime, a network comprised of nothing but particles working with an unestimable degree of connectivity.
Banville’s La Luz uses hundreds of tiny mirrors to unpack our immediate environment, capturing and bouncing light, it reflects back to us many hundred fragments of our surroundings, our life, our hopes and our realities.
It is an idea further reflected in Very Disco (a perceptive deconstruction of Discovery), Lara Fischel-Chisholm’s ode to the everyday explorer and standing invitation to look for wonder and discovery in our modern lives. To look up, to dream, to follow the light and… dance.
This work acts as something of a companion piece to Hamish Steptoe’s Bush Disco. Where Fischel-Chisholm gently suggests it, this one is a little less forgiving in its insistence to dance like no-one’s watching. There are those that gladly accept that offer, and tend towards the road not taken, while others look for fellow travellers and the companionship and comradery offered by the caravan.
How we identify with those on a similar path, how we socialise and how we interact with those we encounter is at the heart of works by Bright Calm City and the collaboration of Bernie Harfleet and Donna T Sarten.
Words & Pictures by Bernie and Donna is centered around the ideas of the unexpected encounter and friendly gesture. It draws on the resource of goodwill and the spirit of generosity prevalent in the Spore audience. Channeling it into a community focussed project designed to reach well beyond the festival boundary through sharing personalised postcards from your Splore summer odyssey with unknown but grateful recipients.
Where Words & Pictures cultivates interaction beyond the festival, So Nice To Meet You by Bright Calm City encourages it within. Recognising our fellow adventurers as we seek our common destiny of Sploretopia, this work suggests an innate collective fellowship between ourselves and those travelling towards the same destination.
No great journey can do without the oasis. That welcome interruption and chance to sit, rest, Relax, Recharge and recline. This is something known by Sparrow Phillips and his contributors Josh Babbage and Jules Payne, whose work offers the weary a place to re-orientate themselves, find true north and top up before continuing on their way.
Navigation is a idea that appears throughout the wider art programme and becomes a significant aspect in a number of works. In our travels we are accustomed to wayfinding via naturally occurring landmarks and man made markers. Be they pre-determined meeting points or more informal watering hole type attractions. Array is a work that will be hard to miss, towering above the crowd and demanding attention with it’s pulsing, shifting array of light. Created by Angus Muir and Alexandra Heaney, it’s sure to become a popular point of reference for all ex-splore-ers.
Aaron McConchie - Through All
The relationship between land and sea is one we seem to innately understand. Through All is a work that addresses the transition from land to sea as it occurs on site at Tapapakanga via the fresh water stream and lagoon.
It marks both the beginning and end of a journey, it is the culmination of the journey as fresh water flows out to sea. While at the same time it is symbolic of the start of an inland journey of exploration and discovery, waterways like this enabling travel, movement and the relocation of life.
Angus Muir and Alexandra Heaney - Array
The title of this work refers to a ‘systematic arrangement’ of similar objects, however, the nature of the work challenges what we might then think of as ‘systematic’.
While it’s form might not convene to what we imagine a systematic arrangement may look like, with it’s long linear columns that sit askew, we only need to look to nature to broaden and extend our interpretation of what systematic can look like.
What Array manages to do is balance the organic with the industrial and maintain the echo of nature well enough in it’s form and function to reclaim the word and relocate it from science back into art and nature.
Regardless of the system or it’s arrangement, Array delivers the viewer a spectacular encounter; by day a stainless steel mirror to it’s location and inhabitants, by night a LED chameleon of shifting colour.
Aoife Banville - La Luz
This is a space for dreaming, a space that takes the viewer on a journey. La Luz is a work that radiates the ephemeral and kinetic aspects of our environment, activated by light and wind it creates an aerial canopy formed of circles of light floating in the sky. Like the leaves of a tree, shimmering and shaking in the breeze, capturing and bouncing light it reflects back to us many hundred fragments of our surroundings, our life, our dreams and our realities.
Bernie Harfleet and Donna T Starten - Words & Pictures
Centered around the idea of the unexpected encounter and friendly gesture, this works draws on the resource of goodwill and the spirit of generosity prevalent in the Spore audience and channels it into a community focussed project designed to reach into the wider community in both NZ and overseas.
Essentially a Splore postal service, Words & Pictures will provide personalised postcards to unknown recipients far beyond the festival site in an effort to broaden the Splore effect that regular festival goers know so well.
Bright Clam City - So Nice To Meet You
Inspired by a visit to Bali, where everyone says hello on the street, be you local, tourist or something in-between; this work seeks to make it ok for strangers to say say hello, to acknowledge each other and to normalise fleeting but valuable interactions.
It operates as a dedicated space but hopes that it’s function is contagious. After all, we are all on the same journey, fellow adventurers seeking our common destiny of Sploretopia. Should we not have an innate collective understanding and camaraderie where we recognise others and ourselves as travelling towards the same destination?
Aaron Glasson & Celeste Byers - Dimensione
An NZ/US collaboration of universal sensibilities. Dimensione is a multi-faceted work combining sculpture, installation and performance into a participatory experience. The latest in a string of iterations produced by this pair of artists as they navigate an inter-dimensional narrative built around the central figure of Ernesto and his time-travelling friends as they explore parallel worlds and alternate realities.
Sparrow Phillips (Component), Josh Babbage, Jules Payne - Relax, Recharge.
When the mind, body and soul all need to just have a moment, take a rest and re-orientate themselves with true North. This is when the Relax, Recharge station comes into it’s own. A miniature oasis offering respite and soft furnishings, it’s an opportunity to recharge both your physical and electronic self.
In the spirit of the mobile devices that accompany us in life, Relax, Recharge has it’s own mobile component. Keep an eye out for the roving solar panel powered charge station moving around the lower Splore site.
Pallet Productions - Play With Your Food
A curious and eclectic orchestra of delicious sounds, Play with your Food is a collection of fabricated, found and repurposed objects made to appear like foodstuffs but used like musical instruments.
Play with your food comes alive with participation and these food-struments aren’t just for looking at!
http://lane-park.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/inkypalms
http://amypotenger.blogspot.co.nz/
Gary Silipa - (Al) Ofa
From what started as a drawing of a non-descript spaceship, Gary Silipa has developed into four unique characters that form The Gang - a search and rescue team from the Heavenly Realms.
(Al) Ofa is the smallest member of The Gang but don't let that deceive you. He's always getting up to mischief and has the special ability to multiply at will.
Hamish Steptoe - Bush Disco
Extending the premise of one of the things that makes Splore so attractive in the first place; that being our privillage to party for 3 days in the majesty of Tapapakanga Regional Park, Bush Disco pushes your dance zone just that bit further into nature and into the bush.
For those who prefer smaller and more intimate environments in which to unleash their full array of shapes, moves and works in progress.
Lara Fischel-Chisholm - Very Disco
In our modern everyday lives it is easy to forget that we are all still explorers - adventurers bravely finding our own way through space. Sometimes it feels like we really are only tiny specs, floating through space on a giant rock. Often we only ever look at what is directly in front of us. Very Disco invites you to look up as your ancestors did; find wonder in the sky above you; invites you to dream; to follow a new path of discovery... and maybe even to dance.
Phil Jones (Suspect) - Wanderlust
We trace our travels, both those real and imagined, across the face of globes, maps and atlases. We project, we remember and we dream. There is a very real sense of discovery that pervades our culture here in Aoteroa. From those who found this land to the many thousands who have subsequently left it only to return with stories of their travels. Wanderlust is a tribute to that spirit of adventure and discovery that falls upon us all at some point in our lives.
Rame - Passe Têtes
Documents pointing to our experiences and encounters we have on our travels are one of the things we hold dear when looking back at how we have spent our time. Drawings, notes, letters and photos have all held personal accounts of individual odysseys. We now use Instagram et al to share these experiences and this work presents a chance to introduce your friends and followers to another special Splore encounter as you pose with these travellers from another world.
Rangiwahia Environmental Arts Centre - Space Odyssey
Memorable arts experiences tend to be ones you have a stake in, be it through direct or indirect participation. Space Odyssey is an invitation to really get your hands dirty and work within a designated making zone giving shape to your ideas for a galactic space costume parade in which you will be one of the stars. Working with experienced space travellers, their guiding hands and space sourced supplies will enable you to leave this world behind and join them in cosmic convoy across the Splore solar system.
Join the team from REACT to make an Escape to Outer Space! (working title, needs work?)
Come with your cosmic ideas and join us at our drop-in workshops - using renewable homegrown willow, low impact and renewable resources - to make your own creation. Then join is for an Out of this World Parade around site at dusk on Saturday evening where UFOs and Aliens may be seen....
Show Me Shorts Film Festival Trust Presents - Time Travellers
We are all time travellers of a sort. Crossing bridges from one decade into another. Stepping between different realities that exist side by side in the same towns and cities. The people in this collection of short films are moving between worlds, pushing the boundaries to explore, and even bend the laws of physics.
Splore Appreciation Society - Cheers4Splore - Gratitude Gardens
Straddling both the Splore Theme Camping and Arts worlds, this work is located in the Theme Camping zone but has some serious artistic intent. We don’t discriminate when it comes to creativity!
Join the Splore Appreciation Society’s #Cheers4Splore cheer squad, show and grow your appreciation at Gratitude Gardens, and give thanks to all that make things Sploresome!
Thijs de Kooning - Bamboo Playground
It’s a funny thing bamboo, such a pain when it continues to escape the neighbours property and invade your garden repeatedly. And yet when looking for that utilitarian, naturally occurring building material you end up wishing you had more of the damn stuff, and in bigger pieces too.
This is putting this resource to work in fashioning a collection of games for young and old to get amongst and reveal that terribly competitive streak they work so hard to disguise.
ajdc - Chaos
The title of this work may refer to some of the peak hour carry on that can hit the famous Splore Goat Track as those heading up run into those coming down. Legends (and casualties) abound about navigating this intrepid path as festival goers make their descent into the heart of Splore.
In an effort to bring some order to the chaos, this work will shine a light on some of the more treacherous aspects you may encounter on this journey and thereby deliver you safely to your destination.
Thomas Murphy - Auto Visualiser
Thomas Murphy is presenting an algorithmically generated installation, Auto Visualiser which uses random number generators to combine images, animations, film and audio samples to create a generically symbolic experience which is almost entirely unpredictable.
Melinda Butt - Hanging Herbs
In teaming up with Splore Appreciation Society’s Gratitude Gardens, Melinda Butt’s Hanging Herbs offers an accessible entry point into hunter-gatherer culture. Offering fresh herb infusions for the weary and willing, this work moves from the earth to your mug in a fragrant example of how we reap what we sow.
Sarah Lancaster - Secrets Of Splore
What happens after dark, what happens deep on the dance floor, maybe a single conversation, or an eye across the camp table. We may never have a moment to pause and reflect, nor remember what happened the night before last… Find the spot to write your secret, read aloud another’s secret & share your #secretsofsplore.
Lang Ea - Ka-Boom
Marking the start of this journey of all journeys, this work acknowledges the origin of life and all that we know.
Donna Hanson - Trapped
A study of opposing forces, Trapped is a multi-layered metaphor for as many things as you’d care to try. Time, space, movement, freedom, youth, life, death, fragility, strength… see, just keep adding to the list.
More than anything it’s a question posed to the viewer and it’s really up to you where you take it, with all paths open we may even end up at the same destination.
Obscure Pavilion - Obscure Pavilion
A work that addresses the opposing and interdependent forces of light and dark without a lightsaber in sight. Based on an oversized sized camera obscura, Obscure Pavilion brings focus to a number of things including the the threshold or point where light passes into darkness. The aperture that separates the two is surprisingly small and offers little comfort to those of us who prefer to operate in the grey area.
26.
Artist/s:
Jack Marsden
Work:
Kiwi
Blurb:
It’s a big bloody kiwi isn’t it. It may not shoot green lasers from it’s eyes but it’s still impressive. Much more so than the feather/cricket hybrid that beat it out. This work is not a flag in case you got the wrong idea..
http://jack-marsdenmayer.squarespace.com/
27.
Artist/s:
Hubbub
Work:
Quantum
Blurb:
This work by Hubbub explores the ideas of quantum reality, how all particles are connected as a network that we know as spacetime. Anything that happens in our universe fits into this network. Anything we observe, we instantly have an effect on, forcing it to become something specific and hold an exact value.
Hubbub is Martin Hill, Braeden Foster and Reuben Poharama. The trio create memorable experiences with art installations that engage the audience.
28.
Artist/s:
Goldfish Creative
Work:
Kereru
Blurb:
The work Kererū pays homage to all the New Zealand native birds that have been lost and will be lost to predators such as domestic cats, and changes to their environment caused by human impact. It feeds into the kaupapa of Splore, a reminder that as kaitiaki (caretakers) we must be vigilant to protect our local whenua from man-made influence and destruction.
29.
Artist/s:
Margaret Lewis
Work:
The Street Loves Nana - A presentation.
Blurb: Many of our journeys in life are cyclical in nature and so it is for this ongoing project that debuted at Splore 2013. Having begun it’s creative odyssey at Tapapkanga Park and travelling to many places and collecting many contributors since, this marks a homecoming of sorts. Bringing the completed works back to the place where it all began with many stories collected along the way.
30.
Artist/s:
Mica Still
Work:
Pursuit
Blurb:
We are all chasing something. Peace, wealth, happiness, contentment, the best noodle soup in town..
Mica Still’s work is all about that inherent instinct that drives us forward, taking us from place to place, from situation to situation, to new worlds and experiences. And while we all move forward at our own pace, in our own manner, it’s a universal affliction that distracts us along the way, one that takes us sideways, backwards and sometime round in circles - that is the pursuit.
https://www.facebook.com/micastill/
http://cargocollective.com/micastill