Te Tuhi is delighted to announce the opening of The Directors by Marcus Coates on Saturday, 24 February 2024 at Toi Ora Live Art Trust, 6 Putiki Street, Grey Lynn from 4.30pm to 6pm.
As the first international presentation of Marcus Coates, The Directors (2022), in collaboration with Artangel, London, and in association with the Auckland Arts Festival, Te Tuhi will celebrate the exhibition opening at an informal event, with speeches and shared kai, alongside the screening of the film The Directors: Stephen, which is being shown at Toi Ora Live Art Trust for the duration of the exhibition. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Prior to the opening event on Saturday, each film will be open to view, showing one film at each central Auckland location (see venues below). The films will be screened between 11am and 4pm on Saturday.
The Directors, (2022) is a collaboration between British artist, Marcus Coates, and five individuals with lived experience of psychosis. Following a prolonged period of research and development, each directed Coates in a film where he attempted to enact their experiences. Mark Banham, Lucy Dempster, Anthony Donohoe, Marcus Gordon, and Stephen Groves each chose a place of significance where they directed Coates to play themselves as they voiced instructions off camera.
The Directors seeks to establish a creative and reciprocal dialogue between Coates and each director; a shared attempt to describe and understand the individuality and complexity of their experiences. For both Coates and the directors, initiating this empathetic process was motivated by a need to share the directors’ stories, together with the necessity to confront and reduce public stigma around psychosis.
Commissioned in London, UK by Artangel, and originally screened in five locations in and around Churchill Gardens Estate in the London borough of Pimlico, Te Tuhi are mirroring the same format and presenting the project in five central Auckland locations, showing one film in each location.
Venues
Beginning this Saturday (24 February), one of each of the films that constitute The Directors will be shown at the following host venues:
Toi Ora Live Art Trust - The Directors: Stephen
Yellow Brick Road - The Directors: Lucy
DEMO - The Directors: Mark
Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery - The Directors: Anthony
Te Tuhi’s Parnell Project Space - The Directors: Marcus
An interactive map of the locations can be found here
Opening times
Saturday 24 February - Sunday 24 March 2024
Thursdays and Fridays 1pm - 6pm
Saturdays and Sundays 11am - 4pm
Each film is between 15 and 30 mins long
To find out more about The Directors, including links to short clips from the five films, interviews with the artist and the directors, and more resources for further understanding the project, alongside resources for mental health support, visit The Directors exhibition page here.