Participants (see their HS progress)
- Antonia Boyle
- Aphra Cheesman
- Nina van Duijnhoven
- Jack Hadley
- Fran Leitch
- Nikki Perry
- Amelia Rothwell
- Mia Straka
- Simon Swale
- Susan Videler
- Michelle Wilkinson
- Macarena Bernal
The HANDSHAKE 6 Activities’ programme for 2020 – 2021:
MASTERclass 2021
ON-E by: Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October about ONLINE EXHIBTIONS with the intention to prepare Handshake 6 artists for their online exhibition submission
Statement: Recently, curators and educators have progressively started exploring the numerous possibilities proposed by virtual exhibitions. Institutions have made 3-D tours of their galleries accessible online through a variety of platforms, allowing visitors from around the globe to virtually “wander” through many Museums around the world, Van Gogh Museum or Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico among other significant sites. But when the Covid-19 pandemic started, public curiosity in virtual art experiences, as for the need of the maker to present worldwide their works, increased like never before.
The online-exhibiting field is yet to be fully discovered, therefore our main purpose with this Masterclass -besides the fact that Handshake Program has since long counted with online exhibitions-, it is to offer intuitive virtual exhibition ideas and presentation of our works, that offers flexibility and are willing to reach to public and/or followers showing their final results, as for its working process as part of the result itself. Aiming at generating enthusiasm through sharing emotions, new values and creating expectations; “The goal is the meaning and the meaning is the goal” while testing abstract and visual/sound experiments, we will our work and process as for the idea of how to present virtually these works yet we as creators. Throughout provoking alternatives to in-person viewing, interactive and a variety of content formats that viewers can engage with, especially during the present times we live in.
Techniques: Video/sound/photo
JEWELcamp 2021 June – Aug
FUNDRAISING Workshop
by: Joany Grima
Objectives: To empower HS6 artists to create a practical, implementable and achievable plan to achieve your collective Handshake fundraising goal.
JEWELcamp & MASTERclass 2020
The HS6 programme started off in pre-Covid January with a JEWELcamp that contained an intro and instruction to the programme, and a Push/Pull intro workshop with Renee Bevan, and a Masterclass workshop with Iris Eichenberg at NZ school of Art & Fashion, Epsom, Auckland.
What happened during MASTERclass:
HS6 artists had to place 5 unfinished works and a finished work they brought along from their workshops on the table.
Iris asked to spend 45 mins with no talking, moving around the tables and adding, subtracting, or moving/grouping works as they pleased.
On an adjacent table, each had tipped out the shoebox of workshop materials they brought along. Invited to help themselves to anyone’s collection they ‘interfered’ with others’ work on the table. After this, all had to write down what was noticeable when they interfered with other’s people’s objects, and what was noticeable what happened to their own work.
Each discussed that in the group.
Following that Iris asked to take some things off the table that was thought were not finished or did not belong there – then to replace it with something.
After that they were instructed to categorise the remaining works into groupings.
They started this in seperate groups, but all moved in and around so the groups weren’t fixed, which happened naturally. After categorising, the remaining works were labelled and went into collections.
This freeing and fun exercise illuminates and illustrates how artists operate in terms of editing and taste preferences.
Iris’ questioning and inspiring ways brought magic to HS6
Blog Posts
Shackle tackle
Catching up again. Now I’m in February. And preparing for CHAINreaction exhibition. The Handshakers had a casual get together over Zoom and shared what we were working on. I was stunned it was February already and was feeling the pressure building over the imminent...
Reflections on Signing In: 2020
Dear Blog, Firstly, apologies I have been slack on posting since our Handshake6 exhibition in October/November last year. My life has settled with a new home since then and this is my commitment that I will be better! Before moving forward I want to share my...
2020 Postmortem
Attai and I talked about the Te Auaha show. We talked about Covid. And family. And artists. We talked about holding on to work. Prioritising making money over work and finding a way to make it work. Oh the forever elusive balance. We talked about the upcoming chain....
Ode to Te Auaha
Looking back. Catching up. Just a few months behind. October 2020, my partner and I drove down to Wellington, with jewellery, rolls of paper and other paraphernalia for our Handshake 6 ‘process’ show. It was magic to be on the open road, going somewhere. We stopped...
How will an object sit on the body? How will a body sit on the object?
I’ve always loved chairs. Especially chairs like these... For a while now, I’ve been photographing chairs that I find on the street (if only I had the space to collect the objects themselves!). Used, worn and broken, these are objects that have lived their lives in...
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”
CHAINreaction has been a really nice chance to focus on connections, community and solidarity, and to applaud the legacy of the Handshake project and all Peter and Hilda have given over the last ten years- I am so disappointed not to be there to share in the...
Old ideas in a new light?
I started writing this blog on the flight back to Auckland from Wellington last year after the Te Auaha show…the blog was full of could have, should have, would have’s bla bla! The show was about process and our HS6 journey’s, much like stopping off...
My summer of monarchs and metaphors
I became a little obsessed with monarch caterpillars this summer. In the absence of making, during a very busy and stressful time at work and with my family, my only outlet was focusing on these little creatures. I couldn’t make, there was no space in my head to do...
Object Runway
The title 'Object Runway' alludes to the reality television series 'Project Runway', where fashion designers compete against each other in challenges. Circulating the space on a motorised pulley system are aluminium mobiles. Loosely anthropomorphic, these...
A Year
My first year of HANDSHAKE 6... How to: Get from my head to my hands; from thinking to object Bring awareness to my process Evoke not describe Pare back Say more with less Writing has become a valuable tool in my making process. Stream of...
‘Signing In’, Te Auaha, Wellington, Nov 2020.
a pocket a stone presence absence remains ‘Stones. On the ground and of the ground. Grounded; grounding. Hand objects.’ Materials: Stone, EPNS, soap, wood,...
The Preservation of Memory ( CHAINreaction)
The Preservation of Memory I have shifted my focus from knots to memory as this was an underlying theme of my work last year and has taken centre stage in 2021. In considering memory as a colour, I realised that for me it centred chiefly around cream; babies’ teeth,...
Te Auaha Exhibition
I am at long last contemplating the Te Auaha exhibition held in Wellington last September. It was four months ago, the end of 2020 punctuated with Christmas and the luxury of travel and family available to us. We are truly blessed in this regard. This time last...
Contextualizing my work through history
I felt it necessary to look into the history of bone use in New Zealand Jewellery, where it originates from and where it sits today. Traditional bone carving has a long history in New Zealand and the wider South Pacific - initially it was a means to create useful...
Breakable Rules
Until 2020 I had never done a masterclass but in January and February I was lucky to participate in both the HS6 masterclass with Iris Eichenberg and a few weeks following a masterclass with David Bielander at RMIT in Melbourne. Iris Eichenberg discussed studio...