Exhibition: Shift.  This exhibition is one of two that comprise a collaborative project between Blue Roof Museum, Chengdu, China and Wintec researchers, Hamilton, NZ.

Wintec artists and Chengdu artists made up this exhibition and was curated by Ding Fenqi, Blue Roof Museum and Eliza Webster, Wallace Gallery , Morrinsville, NZ. Notions of community, technology and exchange were explored in the exhibition

This sculptural work explores ideas of work, location/relocation and transferable skills

Williams, Gareth C. A.

English

Exhibition: Shift.  This exhibition is one of two that comprise a collaborative project between Blue Roof Museum, Chengdu, China and Wintec researchers, Hamilton, NZ.
Wintec artists and Chengdu artists made up this exhibition and was curated by Ding Fenqi, Blue Roof Museum and Eliza Webster, Wallace Gallery , Morrinsville, NZ. Notions of community, technology and exchange were explored in the exhibition
This sculptural work explores ideas of work, location/relocation and transferable skills

Wintec Research Archive

蓝顶美术馆馆际交流项目展：变 Blue Roof Museum Exchange Exhibition: Shift  A note from the curator, 伊丽莎·韦伯斯特/Eliza Webster, from the Wallace Gallery Morrinsville.  The exhibition Shift showcases contemporary artworks from working artists and researchers from the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) in Hamilton, New Zealand, and residents of the Blue Roof Museum artist community located in Chengdu, China. Twelve artists from Hamilton and seven artists from Chengdu are represented in the exhibition: Tim Croucher, Gareth Williams, Mark Purdom, Xavier Meade, Geoffrey Clarke, Kent Macpherson, Paul Nelson, Stef Young, Tony Nicholls, Jeremy Mayall, Dan Inglis, Tracey Stockley-Smith, 何利平(He Liping), 普耘 (Pu Yun), 邱文青 (Qiu Wenqin), 童文敏 (Tong Wenmin), 王彦鑫 (Wang Yanxin), 张晋 (Zhang Jin) and 周斌 (Zhou Bin). Through consultation between the institutions, a selection of works were chosen from a cumulative collection of several lifetimes worth of fine arts career production, and we present the result to you here, at the Wallace Gallery in Morrinsville.   It is important and essential to deconstruct the notions of ‘space and ‘place’ in order to understand our theoretical pretext of the exhibition. Shift, and it’s Chinese counterpart,  变, or in Pinyin, Biàn, which extends beyond our understanding of the English word to include the idea of metamorphose, brings about images of movement, or cause to move from one place to another, or more importantly a slight change in position, direction or tendency. Herein, ideas of ‘space’ and ‘place’ become significant when we shift. ‘Spaces’ in this context are extended to both the physical (museums, institutions) and social (the designation of the space, territory). The misconception that space functions as a passive comprehensive vessel has been challenged by Edward Casey’s (1997) reasoning that space and time are created and positioned within place and local knowledge. Place, in this sense, is therefore a complex term, tying into relational concepts of belonging and local knowledge (Casey, 1997). Philosopher, Henri Lefevbre (1974) said that spaces (built environments such as architectural space, such as the gallery you are now standing in) are to be perceived as active environments that transform in direct correspondence to the dwelling bodies that inhabit them. Therefore, the construction of exhibition spaces by curators speaks directly to processes of knowledge transfer and production. It is these arguments that secure the theoretical backing for our bringing to you this particular collection of work, linking the space of the gallery (a space in which to represent cultural knowledge to our community) and the places brought with the artworks (which are themselves visual articulations of cultural knowledge). Space and place are experienced through phenomenological happenstances; Shift aims to include multiple fields of sensorial engagement (sight, sound, movement) in order to more accurately represent the artists’ articulations of place, of home.   I’d like to talk a little more about our idea, mentioned earlier, of knowledge transfer and production. The Wintec School of Media Arts researchers and the artists from Blue Roof Gallery in Chengdu have built close artistic relationships over many years of collaboration. Wintec has been collaborating with Chinese institutions for around ten years, students from Chengdu travel often to study at the Hamilton institution, and New Zealand students have travelled East, to Chengdu University to complete both undergraduate and postgraduate study, with that, lecturers travel to exchange knowledge, to share concepts, and to build relationships that benefit all parties by building confidence in international arts exchange.   You will notice that this exhibition talks of home. Each artist has, in their own way, brought with their work an indication of the home ‘place’, either physical or social. Kent Macpherson, Mark Purdom and Paul Nelson’s multimedia work, Whakaari (which translates roughly to ‘display’, which White Island, the landscape they depict, does constantly). The provided text that accompanies Whakaari talks of an “homage to the significance of the island’s sheer majesty”, a celebration of the physicality and brutality of the place by looking and listening to the tiniest of parts. It is these little things that make us think of home, to share them outside of a community that knows them well leaves the concept open to re-contextualisation, or missing the point altogether.   Jeremy Mayall and Dan Inglis’ audio visual work, Common Divisor | 公约数, depicts people alone, but with community sounds around them. The idea of being alone in your own home (alone in the emotional sense) but potentially not the physical, I believe links especially to foreigners joining a community far from home. The physical time and place you are in at any one time does not change your sense of home, or of local community. Our cultural knowledge brings with it belonging. We hope that our Chinese friends in this exhibition are home enough here to show us their idea of it.   The importance of cultural exchange exhibitions represents a major strand of the purpose of an art gallery or museum. They widen their reach, increase access to collections and assist in sharing major works with cultural organisations and communities (Cline, 2012), especially small communities, that would not otherwise showcase works of a differing cultural nature. The Chinese works for our exhibition, Shift, have been taken from Shifting Permanence, an exhibition held in China earlier this year, at the UP-ON International On-site Festival that has been held in Chengdu for six years.   Throughout the course of the exhibition, we hope that a new international community can be built within their show and with you.    References:  Murphy, A. September, 2015. Temporary and touring exhibitions: reaching out to new audiences. Sourced from https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/features/temporary-and-touring-exhibitions-reaching-out-to-audiences/  Lefebre, H. 1974. The production of space. Sourced from https://monoskop.org/images/7/75/Lefebvre_Henri_The_Production_of_Space.pdf  Casey, E. 1997. Getting back into place. Sourced from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271166527_Getting_Back_into_Place  Cline, A. 2012. The evolving role of the exhibition and its impact on art and culture. Sourced from https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.co.nz/&httpsredir=1&article=1275&context=theses   Thank you to our contributors, your work is so special and we appreciate your time and practise more than you can know.  联合主办：华莱士画廊（新西兰）、成都蓝顶美术馆、怀卡托理工学院（新西兰） Co-sponsored by: Wallace Gallery Morrinsville, Blue Roof Museum of Chengdu, Waikato Institute of Technology (NZ)  承办单位：华莱士画廊（新西兰） Organized by: Wallace Gallery Morrinsville  支持单位：怀卡托理工学院（新西兰） Supported by: Waikato Institute of Technology   策展人/ Curator 伊丽莎·韦伯斯特/ Eliza Webster, 丁奋起/ Ding Fenqi  参展艺术家/ Artists Tim Croucher, Gareth Williams, Mark Purdom, Xavier Meade, Geoffrey Clarke, Kent Macpherson, Paul Nelson, Stef Young, Tony Nicholls, Jeremy Mayall, Dan Inglis, 何利平/ He Liping, 普耘/ Pu Yun, 邱文青/ Qiu Wenqin, 童文敏/ Tong Wenmin, 王彦鑫/Wang Yanxin, 张晋/ Zhang Jin, 周斌/ Zhou Bin  开幕式：2018年 11月 3日 11:00 Opening Ceremony: 11am -1pm, 3rd November 2018  展览时间：2018年 11月 4日——11月 25日 Duration: September 7th — October 8th, 2017  展览地点：泰晤士街 167号 Morrinsville Address: 167 Thames Street Morrinsville, Hamilton, NZ 

Shift exhibition : Work implements for the legal immigrant (2018)

http://researcharchive.wintec.ac.nz/6749/5/Shift%20essay%20.pdf

Shift exhibition : Work implements for the legal immigrant (2018)

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