CIRCUIT CAST www.circuit.org.nz

Hihi Aho is a three-part podcast series hosted by Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu). Hihi Aho (ray of light) unfolds from Rematriation, a new screening programme of five moving image works which explore the legacy of wāhine Māori knowledge and its resonance in the present day.

In this conversation, Emma talks to Rematriation's curator Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka (Ngā Puhi, Ngati Pakau and Waitaha). Tanya is CIRCUIT's inaugural Kaitiaki Kiriata, a new role that supports a Māori curator to develop moving image projects which speak through the lens of Te Ao Māori. Emma and Tanya discuss the works in Rematriation, concepts of time, the impact of growing up outside of their ancestral whenua, and Tanya's own video practice.

For details on Rematriation's screening venues, see www.circuit.org.nz/rematriation
For distribution/hire enquiries, please write to: info@circuit.org.nz

How is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland City described outside of official city maps? Is it possible to navigate off-road, off-grid? What discrete spaces exist in the plain sight of everyday work, life and commerce? How are these activated by people, flora and fauna?

In front of a live audience, artists Layne Waerea, Leala Faleseuga, Gavin Hipkins, Jae Hoon Lee, Gabriel White, and Tia Barrett discuss their video works for Wild Wild Life, a public art project commissioned by Auckland Council, curated by Mark Williams for CIRCUIT, and presented as part of the 2024 Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival.

Installed at a series of site-specific locations across the inner city, the artists’ works were presented in proximity to the construction of the City Rail Network, a massive engineering project that has temporarily remapped downtown Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as a construction site, and, when completed, will fundamentally alter its psycho-geography.

In part 3 of the series Sites of Connection Dani McIntosh speaks to artist Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Haua, Tainui/Waikato, Ngāti Waewae, Waitaha, Kai Tahu). Often juxtaposing poetic text with handheld moving images, Hana’s video work addresses the tension between industry and sacred whenua; the presence of deep time and new parenthood.

0:00 Introduction

1:00 Hana discusses her video 'I saw the mountain erupt' (2023); working with an essay by her partner Morgan Godfery; the town of Kawerau as formerly one of NZ’s wealthiest towns and now one of the poorest, and also the town as the site of Māori pūrākau.

5:54
Dani asks; Why entwine the writing with the moving image?

8:09
Dani introduces the video work A eulogy to love (2019); Dani asks why juxtapose shots of Italian actress Monica Vitti with the landscape in Aotearoa? Hana explains the video was shot in many sites including Aotearoa, Portugal and other European locations. She discusses Vitti as an image of an “hysterical woman”, and the ongoing theme in her practice of "the tension of industry versus caring for the whenua (landscape)”.

13.08
Dani asks about the line “I will not be afraid despite the fear tumbling through my body”.

15:50
Hana on how parenthood has affected their work. Se discusses 'deep time', the relationship between the human and non-human and the whakataukī 'Ka Mua, Ka Muri' (walking backwards into the future).

20:00
Hana on David Lynch’s movie Eraserhead (1977).

23:00
Hana discusses and the writing of New Zealand author Keri Hulme (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe), which was part of her work with Ke te Pai Press (with Morgan Godfery), shown in the group exhibition Matarau

24:41
Working with musician Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu)

27:24
End

"Dwelling in the void space" — a conversation between Selina Ershadi and Dani McIntosh, the second part of the CIRCUIT Cast series Sites of Connection.

In this podcast, artist Selina Ershadi discusses three films: Hollywood Ave (2017), Amator (2019) and The hands also look (2020), alongside a new work in progress, The Blue Dome (forthcoming). In conversation with artist Dani McIntosh, Selina reflects on navigating personal and family histories as guided by Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren and Derek Jarman; ideas of dwelling, homemaking and displacement; oral storytelling traditions and the poetic potential of decentering the visual.

A conversation between artists James Tapsell-Kururangi and Dani McIntosh on the metaphoric and poetic potential of the moving image.

A conversation with writers Tina Makereti, Gregory Kan, and Gwynneth Porter, on the dynamic possibilities for writing to respond to art beyond the essay, chaired by Thomasin Sleigh. Recorded at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery.