Crossings
(a group show about intimacies and distances)

Turumeke Harrington
Yolunda Hickman
Sonya Lacey
Rozana Lee
Grant Lingard
Vivian Lynn
Allan McDonald
Emma McIntyre
Next Spring
Layla Rudneva-Mackay
Richard Shepherd
James Tapsell-Kururangi

…caesuras serve as techniques for modifying subjectivity, activating a process that disrupts perception and feeling and can ultimately generate a transformation, a new way of becoming.

Paul Preciado, Artforum, 2020

A collective pause, a moment to turn inwards – Crossings began with a reflection on the disruptions of 2020. As we shared the experiences of a global pandemic, of shifting political landscapes and transformative action, 2020 was also a time of interiority, of modified subjectivities and heightened anxieties as global lockdowns forced us to turn inwards. Together we withdrew from the world; our most intimate relationships were confined to our bubbles or existed only on screen.

Crossings is a group show sparked by these intimacies and distances. It brings together a range of artists and works that register the polarities of inside and outside, closeness and distance, health and illness and the impacts of larger external forces on our collective subjectivities. But it is not a show about the pandemic. The artists selected work in a variety of media, are of different generations, have different life experiences and cultural backgrounds. Few of the works were made during or about lockdown. Instead, the show explores how objects, images, and materials carry meanings that are opaque, at the edge of conscious thought, that suggest rather than proclaim. They niggle at the edge of knowing, to articulate the promise and fear of a threshold state.

The works in the exhibition include meditations on public and private spaces and our movements between them; on the body in states of illness, pain, pleasure, reproduction and death; on mobility and change in the face of political and economic turmoil, and on the inevitable impact of an unseen threat that has changed everything. They ask: how can these intimate experiences, fraught relationships, larger forces and their attendant effects be communicated in an art work?

Crossings includes moving image work from current Walters Prize finalist Sonya Lacey and the first New Zealand screening of Philip Scheffner and Merle Kröger’s filmwork, Havarie, 2016; installations by Next Spring, Grant Lingard, Turumeke Harrington, Yolunda Hickman and Rozana Lee; an artist book by Vivian Lynn; paintings by Emma McIntyre and Layla Rudneva-Mackay; photographic series by Allan McDonald and Richard Shepherd.

Again, Grandmother, Grey Street, 2019-2021, an illustrated text by James Tapsell Kururangi can be accessed here (contains graphic content). This is the artist’s contribution to Crossings, and it is on his request that this is only accessible as a PDF via the Gallery’s website.

Crossings is generously supported by the Chartwell Trust.

Magic Eye written by Ashleigh Young pdf. This text was written for the exhibition Crossings and read by the author at the opening on 18 June 2021.

A schedule of public programme events associated with Crossings can be viewed on our calendar webpage.

Crossings media release pdf.

The artists

Turumeke Harrington has a background in industrial design and visual arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 2018. She is currently completing her MFA at Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University, for which she received the inaugural Collin Post Memorial Scholarship in 2021. Solo exhibitions of her work include Whai Whakapapa Te Tuatahi (Toi Tū Studio One, Auckland, 2017); Turumeke Harrington (Sumer Contemporary Art, Tauranga, 2019); Hey māmā come play with me (The Physics Room, Christchurch, 2019); Stuck in customs (RM Gallery, Auckland, 2020); Mahoranuiatea Looking out in every direction (Objectspace, Auckland, 2020), and Gentle Ribbing (Toi Pōneke, Wellington, 2020). She and curator Grace Ryder co-produced the exhibition Help yourself at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Wellington, in May 2021. Harrington lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington.

Yolunda Hickman is an Auckland-based artist. She graduated with a Doctorate of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 2020. In 2016 she undertook a residency at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada, and was part of the 2019 RM Gallery Summer Residency in Auckland. Solo exhibition projects include Passed, Repeating Last (Five Walls, Melbourne, 2016); Shoaling (Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, 2020); Signal Forest (4 Plinths, Wellington Sculpture Trust, Wellington 2020) and Zombies Everywhere (Sumer Contemporary Art, Tauranga, 2020). Hickman is currently the acting Director for the Master of Fine Arts programme at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland.

Sonya Lacey was born in Hastings. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 2007. A founding member of the alternative space Newcall Gallery in Auckland, she has exhibited in public and artist-run galleries throughout New Zealand. She taught Graphic Design at the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in Auckland and is currently the Dunedin Public Art Gallery artist in residence for 2021. She has held residencies at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada, 2011; Seoul Artspace, Geumcheon, South Korea, 2012, and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, 2017. She is a nominee for the 2020 Walters Prize at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki for her exhibition, Weekend, 2018, a four-channel moving-image and mixed-media installation, presented at Dowse Art Museum, Wellington in 2018–19. She has recently shifted from Wellington to Tauranga and is represented by Robert Heald, Wellington.

Rozana Lee is of Indonesian-Chinese heritage. She moved to New Zealand in 2010. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology and a MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts at University of Auckland, graduating in  2018. Recent exhibitions include Two Oceans at Once (ST PAUL St, Auckland, 2019); Reconfigure(d) (Making Space, Guangzhou, 2019); Future Flowering (play_station, Wellington, 2020);  Projects 2020: Space as Substance (Auckland Art Fair, 2020); Home is Anywhere in the World (Meanwhile, Wellington, 2020), and Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania (Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, 2020–22). Lee was a finalist in several art awards, including the Wallace Art Awards in 2018 and 2019, and the Parkin Drawing Prize in 2016 and 2019. She has undertaken artist residencies at INSTINC, Singapore, in 2016, and Making Space, Guangzhou, China, in 2019. Lee lives in Auckland.

Grant Lingard was born in Blackball on the West Coast of the South Island and studied at Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, graduating in 1984. His practice evolved over his short career into a simple language of sculptural forms that combined everyday materials like carved soap, tar and feathers, and men’s underwear, to explore his experience as a gay man in New Zealand. His practice gained a special urgency after his HIV-positive diagnosis, and his untimely death in 1995 marks him as one of the first wave of victims of this illness. He enjoyed attention in the mid-1990s for his important statements concerning his sexuality as it rubbed against the tropes of ‘Kiwi’ masculinity, notably with his inclusion in Art Now: The First Biennial Review of Contemporary Art at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand in Wellington in 1994, and a string of projects that grew out of his artist-residency at Ilam that same year and in the wake of his death in 1995. Lingard’s work has lately experienced a new wave of interest from a younger generation of artists, curators and writers. His works have been included in: Implicated and Immune (Michael Lett, Auckland, 2015); Sleeping Arrangements (Dowse Art Museum, 2018), and True Love: A Tribute to Grant Lingard (Ilam Campus Gallery, 2021). A website dedicated to his work and memory was established by Jeremiah Boniface on the strength of his Art History Honours’ research undertaken at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

Vivian Lynn studied at Canterbury University College School of Art graduating with a Diploma of Fine Art in 1952 and Auckland Teachers’ College, graduating with a Diploma in Teaching in 1953. She undertook further study in printmaking on a research trip to the USA in 1972. She had a long-standing career as a lecturer at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design (which was amalgamated with Victoria University and then Massey University) teaching drawing between 1974 and her retirement in 1999. Though never aligning herself with the Women’s Art Movement, Lynn was instrumental in coordinating the Women’s Art Archive (1983–84), which is now held at Te Papa. Plagued with long periods of serious illness, Lynn still exhibited in solo and group exhibitions from the late 1950s and was included in several survey exhibitions including Anxious Images (Auckland City Art Gallery, 1984); Content/Context (National Art Gallery, Wellington, 1986), and Alter Image: Negotiating Feminism and Representation in Recent New Zealand Art 1973–1993 (City Gallery Wellington, 1993). A major retrospective exhibition I, HERE, NOW Vivian Lynn was staged by the Adam Art Gallery in 2008–9. Since then, her work has enjoyed renewed attention. Two of her installations from the 1980s and 1990s were recently included in the 13th Gwangju Biennale Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, Gwangju, South Korea, in 2021, and she is now represented by Southard Reid, London. Lynn died at her home in Wellington in 2018.

Allan McDonald was born in Lower Hutt. He has been working with photography since the 1960s. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, in 1998. He has produced a number of photobooks including Carbon Empire, which won the 2017 New Zealand Photo Book of the Year award. His work is held in public collections across New Zealand and he has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, ranging from The Active Eye (Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North, 1975) to Freedom Farmers: New Zealand Artists Growing Ideas (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2013-14). McDonald is a lecturer in the School of Creative Industries at Unitec in Auckland. He is represented by Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland.

Emma McIntyre was born in Auckland. She graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art from Auckland University of Technology in 2011, and a MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 2016. Solo exhibitions include: Pink Square Sways (Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland, 2017); Rose on Red (Hopkinson Mossman, Wellington, 2018); Heat (Mossman, Wellington, 2020), and Pour plenty on the worlds (Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021). In 2019 she was awarded a Fulbright General Graduate Award to study at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, and she will graduate this US summer.

Next Spring is an occasional series of texts commissioned, edited and published in book form by Berlin-based New Zealander Laura Preston. Each issue is an essay of art criticism focused on a moving-image work, published both in English and the language of place. On Distance, an essay by Berlin-based art writer Boaz Levin, written in that city and published in German and English, is the third in the series (the previous publications derived from Paris and Athens respectively).

Boaz Levin was born in Jerusalem and currently lives in Berlin. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and the Berlin University of the Arts. Together with Hito Steyerl and Vera Tollmann, he co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, and his work has recently been exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv; Human Resources in Los Angeles, and FIDMarseille in Marseille. Since October 2016, Levin has been a PhD candidate as part of the Cultures of Critique research training group at Leuphana University, Lüneburg.

Laura Preston was born in Auckland. She has a Masters in Art History from the University of Auckland. She held a range of curatorial positions in New Zealand, including Adam Art Gallery Curator (2008–12) before leaving to work and study in Europe. She has been a guest curator at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, and an editor for documenta14. She initiated Next Spring during a residency in Paris and whilst acting as the Adam’s Curator-at-large (2013–15). She is currently living in Berlin and completing a PhD with the Institute of Art Theory and Cultural Studies, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Philip Scheffner is a German video and film maker and a sound artist. With author screenwriter and filmmaker Merle Kröger, he founded the film production company Pong in 2001. Their films have been shown in numerous festivals and in January 2021 Arsenal Cinema in Berlin undertook a retrospective of their work. They are based in Berlin.

Layla Rudneva-Mackay graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 2006. Her practice has progressed through sculpture, photography and painting, united by an exploration of colour, tone and shape through carefully considered compositions, but also evolving as a consequence of managing various serious health conditions. Her paintings in Crossings were included in ACC bcc Bananas, at Starkwhite in Auckland in July 2020, and she has exhibited there regularly since 2009. Solo shows include: 6 French Street, New Plymouth (Te Tuhi Billboards, Auckland, 2003) and Your words in my mind become mine. Your words are mine now (Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington, 2007). Group exhibitions include: Ready to Roll (City Gallery, Wellington, 2010);  Julian Dashper (1960-2009): It is Life (Minus Space, Brooklyn, New York, 2010); Reverie (Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2014); and Ice Cream Salad (Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland, 2019). Rudneva-Mackay lives and works in Auckland. She is represented by Starkwhite, Auckland.

Richard Shepherd was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1994. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Otago University (2004); a Diploma of Photography, a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Arts, and a Master of Fine Arts from Massey University, Wellington (2011). His video work On Borrowed Sand was exhibited at City Gallery Wellington’s Square2 space in 2011 and the photo series Romance was exhibited in the Courtenay Place Lightboxes in 2016. His work is in the Wellington City Council Collection. Shepherd is currently undertaking a PhD in Film through Victoria University of Wellington and living in Whanganui. 

James Tapsell-Kururangi graduated from Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University, with a Bachelor of Design in 2017, and a Master of Fine Arts in 2019. He is the inaugural 2020–21 Curatorial Intern at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, where he is responsible for the programme at Papatūnga, the independent art space operating from the platform of the Parnell Station. His work was included in the group show How to live together at ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland, 2019, and his first solo exhibition, He waiata aroha, was recently staged at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Wellington, in 2021. His writing has been published in Lieu Journal, Pantograph Punch and in As Needed, As Possible, an online publication edited by Sophie Davis and Simon Gennard published on the Enjoy website.