Sculptor Brett Graham and digital artist Rachael Rakena have had their collaborative work Aniwaniwa accepted for the collateral events section of the world's most prestigious art event, the Venice Art Biennale. Aniwaniwa is a sculptural and video installation exploring the idea of submersion as a metaphor for cultural loss.

Image: Video still from AniwaniwaSculptor Brett Graham and digital artist Rachael Rakena have had their collaborative work Aniwaniwa accepted for the collateral events section of the world's most prestigious art event, the Venice Art Biennale. Aniwaniwa is a sculptural and video installation exploring the idea of submersion as a metaphor for cultural loss.

Image: Video still from AniwaniwaAniwaniwa tells the story of Horahora, a village on the Waikato River where Brett Graham's father was born, which was flooded to create a new dam at Lake Karapiro.

The drive to get the project shown in Venice is the initiative of curator Alice Hutchison who curated the work for Te Manawa Museums Trust in Palmerston North, where it was exhibited from September last year until earlier this month. Ms Hutchison, who has worked extensively overseas, says she knew the work would be well received in an international context.

"Aniwaniwa is perfect for Venice. The notion of submersion is highly pertinent to the slowly sinking city of Venice and our Italian colleagues are really excited about this work. While it tells a very specific and local story, its references are very international both in terms of environmental issues, with rising sea levels and global warming, and concerns about cultural loss in an era of globalisation," she said.

Ms Hutchison worked with two prominent Italian curators Camilla Seibezzi, based in Venice (Director of Non-Profit space Plug, and curator of a number of previous Biennale exhibitions and events), and Milan-based Milovan Farronato, one of Italy's leading contemporary art curators, to submit the project for inclusion in the collateral exhibitions. This is a section of the Biennale which shows public museum quality projects chosen by Robert Storr, the Artistic Director of the Venice Biennale.

Selected from hundreds of submissions from around the world, the project will receive official promotion in all Venice Biennale marketing, with four pages dedicated to the project in the official exhibition catalogue. The project will also feature on the Biennale website, in materials supplied to Italian and international press, and the Biennale will install a map of Venice with the venues of the collateral events.

The world's oldest art exposition, the Venice Biennale has three components: a curated exhibition, national pavilions and collateral events. New Zealand has participated in the last three Biennales and will return in 2009 but is not participating as a country this year. The selection of these artists for the collateral events programme will give New Zealand a significant presence at the 2007 event.

The two artists are thrilled and excited to have their work selected. "It is a dream come true," Ms Rakena said. "Venice is the apex of the art world. It is a fantastic opportunity to have your work seen at an event which attracts the most important art audience in the world.

"It is amazing that such a local story can have such resonance elsewhere," Dr Graham said. "I am very pleased that these wakahuia (vessels containing precious things), our taonga can be seen and understood by an international audience."

Ensuring that the artists will be able to participate in the Biennale, which runs from June to November, does not come cheaply and is even more prohibitive for New Zealand because of our distance. Funds are needed to cover venue rental, freight, travel, promotion and communications.

Support has already come from Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, the National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement, Massey Univerisity and Te Wananga o Aotearoa who made possible the development of the project. In Italy, the two Italian curators have worked tirelessly to secure a venue and sponsorship for the project.

In New Zealand an organising committee has been established, comprising the artists, curator Alice Hutchison and gallerists Jenny Todd, director of Two Rooms Gallery who represents Graham in Auckland and Alison Bartley director of Bartley and Company Art who represents Graham and Rakena in Wellington.

16/2/07