“This exhibition, curated by Bruce E. Phillips does exactly what a public gallery should. It enables artists to show large works and installations and the result here is a group of singularly powerful works in a range of media.”
– T. J. McNamara, New Zealand Herald
"Rangituhia Hollis’s Oho Ake [is] an impressive video work, it is both absorbing and compelling."
– Rebecca Boswell, Circuit
Welcome to the hive, where a global population of seven billion bodies and minds are linked by road networks and rail lines, shipping lanes and flight paths, submarine cables and satellites, electrical grids and server farms. These immense infrastructures are completely dependent upon the plans of engineers, designers, programmers and the countless others who build, maintain or legislate their use. Yet despite its impervious appearance, this hive of civilisation is continually put to the test as terrestrial and human forces seek out weaknesses and fight for control – be that through social, political, economic or environmental pressure.
THE HIVE HUMS WITH MANY MINDS explores how these vast global mechanisms shape the local reality in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sprawling abundantly over two venues, this exhibition features an eclectic constellation of artworks ranging from large immersive video and sculptural installations to contemplative photographs and drawings.
The selected artworks provide meditations on either industrial, urban or information infrastructures. Using these three sub-themes, the 14 featured artists tap into a tangled mass of interrelated issues including information control, global mobility, migration, sovereignty, colonisation, environmental destruction, urbanism, oversaturated mediascapes, social emergence and material residues of the Anthropocene.
PART ONE is based at Te Tuhi and features three ambitious new commissions: a courtyard installation by Charlotte Drayton, an expansive three-channel animation work by Rangituhia Hollis and a large abstract drawing by Monique Jansen. Exhibited alongside these commissions is a five-channel video work by Alex Monteith and a series of photographs by Caroline McQuarrie.
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