Exhibition 2
HS8’s second group exhibition at Pah Homestead, (Auckland 8 November 2024 – 16 February 2025, opening Th 8 Nov).
MATERIALISE marks the conclusion of a two-year journey for this remarkable group of HANDSHAKE 8 artists, at The Arts House Trust, Pah Homestead, Auckland.
Over this period, participants have explored and honed their practices through online and in-person masterclasses, lecture series in art history & theory, and collaboration with mentors, including this year’s video presentation masterclass led by Catalan maker Estela Saez-Vilanova.
During this time, they have worked closely together, sharing invaluable experiences and cultivating a shared vision of leadership, all while striving to achieve their individual artistic goals.
The resulting exhibition showcases diverse material and conceptual approaches, embodying Handshake’s ethos of exploration and innovation.
The exhibition process is used as a learning tool for their future exhibitions, focusing on essential curation skills, communication, work support/furniture, exhibition design, artist statements, labels, and other professional gallery ethics. Their first at Depot ArtSpace played a crucial role in this educational process, as well as the collaboration with Pah Homestead’s curator: Nicholas Butler.
MORE about HS8 second exhibition
HS8 exhibition images: Materialise
Exhibition 1
HS8’s first group exhibition was at Depot Artspace, Devonport (Auckland 4 Nov to 21 Dec 2023, opening Sat 4 Nov).
This marked the mid-project experience, featuring works that were developed throughout a year-long exploration process. The artists’ interests, masterclasses, and coaching sessions all played a vital role in shaping the edited installations of each HS8 artist.
The exhibition process is used as a learning tool for their future exhibitions, focusing on essential curation skills, communication, work support/furniture, exhibition design, artist statements, labels, and other professional gallery ethics. The Depot ArtSpace played a crucial role in this educational process.
MORE about HS8 first exhibition
HS8 exhibition images: Proof of Concept
Exhibiting art in different formats and situations is a rule-bound process that requires practice, feedback, and introduction. Creating artwork for exhibitions, participating in its planning, design, setup, installation, lighting, labels, artist statement, promotion, and delivering artist talks are all integral parts of the exhibition learning experience.
Preparing for an exhibition creates pressure and awareness among HS8 artists about the significance of planning, focus, and direction in their development. It requires good editing, a keen creative eye, resilience, and time management to articulate a homogeneous group from the process and finished works.
HS8 BLOG posts:
Wayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way
Firstly a public service announcement, this is not a review. It is more akin to thinking aloud about what I got out of Wayfinding by Michael Bond. In the book Michael Bond explores how the act of wayfinding and spatial awareness helps to connect us to surroundings by...
Market Place – Rabbit Hole
Recently I have been fascinated with the tradies and handymen of facebook marketplace selling their scraps. The composition, lighting and angles of these images are brilliant. All I see is jewellery. I can see the thought and artistic intent that has gone into these...
transitions.
My life is in boxes, now neatly arranged in piles around the house. A moment of reprieve amongst the chaos. I'm about to move to the other side of the country, so my making practice is stalled until I can re-settle. In the past month or so I found myself obsessed with...
My other Family Tree
My master discipline of procrastination comes to the fore as deadlines loom and I find myself reading one of the many books on my desk - Steal like an artist by Austin Kleon. It was something I had picked up out of curiosity from the many hundreds I’d inherited from...
HS8 E-ON sessions
E presentation workshop ON-E by Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES) (subject to funding)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October 2024 about alternative EXHIBTION options with the intention to prepare Handshake 8 artists for an online exhibition submission
Exhibitions
HS8’s second group exhibition at Pah Homestead, (Auckland 8 November 2024 – 16 February 2025, opening Th 8 Nov).
MATERIALISE marks the conclusion of a two-year journey for this remarkable group of HANDSHAKE 8 artists, at The Arts House Trust, Pah Homestead, Auckland.
Over this period, participants have explored and honed their practices through online and in-person masterclasses, lecture series in art history & theory, and collaboration with mentors, including this year’s video presentation masterclass led by Catalan maker Estela Saez-Vilanova.
During this time, they have worked closely together, sharing invaluable experiences and cultivating a shared vision of leadership, all while striving to achieve their individual artistic goals.
The resulting exhibition showcases diverse material and conceptual approaches, embodying Handshake’s ethos of exploration and innovation.
The exhibition process is used as a learning tool for their future exhibitions, focusing on essential curation skills, communication, work support/furniture, exhibition design, artist statements, labels, and other professional gallery ethics. Their first at Depot ArtSpace played a crucial role in this educational process, as well as the collaboration with Pah Homestead’s curator: Nicholas Butler.
MORE about HS8 second exhibition
HS8 exhibition images: Materialise
HS8 EXHIBITION 1
S8’s first group exhibition was at Depot Artspace, Devonport (Auckland 4 Nov to 21 Dec 2023, opening Sat 4 Nov).
This marked the mid-project experience, featuring works that were developed throughout a year-long exploration process. The artists’ interests, masterclasses, and coaching sessions all played a vital role in shaping the edited installations of each HS8 artist.
The exhibition process is used as a learning tool for their future exhibitions, focusing on essential curation skills, communication, work support/furniture, exhibition design, artist statements, labels, and other professional gallery ethics. The Depot ArtSpace played a crucial role in this educational process.
MORE about HS8 first exhibition
HS8 exhibition images: Proof of Concept
HS8’s second and end-of-project exhibition MATERIALISE: 8 Nov 2024 – 16 Feb 2025 will take place at Pah Homestead, Auckland, opening on Thursday, 7 November 2024, from 6-8 pm.
This exhibition synthesizes all the research, feedback, experiments and ideas into a cohesive body of work. A special feedback hui afterwards determines how the processes and outcomes connect (subject to funding).
Exhibiting art in different formats and situations is a rule-bound process that requires practice, feedback, and introduction. The process of creating artwork for exhibitions, participating in its planning, design, setup, installation, lighting, labels, artist statement, promotion, and delivering artist talks are all integral parts of the exhibition learning experience.
Preparing for an exhibition creates pressure and awareness among HS8 artists about the significance of planning, focus, and direction in their development. It requires good editing, a keen creative eye, resilience, and time management to articulate a homogeneous group from the process and finished works.
Reflections
The virtual classes with Estela Saez have now sadly come to an end. I learnt so much from Estela, as well as from the Handshake 8 cohort. It was a period of intensive development of my making processes, as well as expansion of my thinking and creative comfort zones....
Any moment now…
For many of the previous classes with Estela we had been oscillating between creatively exploring within two and three dimensions. In this session we played somewhere in between. We had a creative brief that was inspired by our latest collection of rings. It was a...
doorways
Small moments. Fragments of my insides.Threads to pick up. Objects to place. Being with discomfort. Creating from that place. I see forests, oceans, rivers, land, weaving themselves through my mind, speaking their stories. pollution. deforestation. over harvesting....
Not Everything Goes to Plan
This Post is like that bloopers section you sometimes get at the end of comedy movies. There were a couple of pieces made during the Estella Workshop phase that kinda crashed and burned. I tell myself "this is a time to experiment. If I'm not hitting the occasional...
Rings From Other Things
I want to say "this was another fun week of play"....but maybe that diminishes the process. With hindsight it's true, but I am writing these posts several weeks after the online workshop and group crit. In the lead up, I'm always pushing to try 'one more idea' and I...
HS8 E-ON sessions
E presentation workshop ON-E by: Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES) (subject to funding)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October 2024 about alternative EXHIBTION options with the intention to prepare Handshake 8 artists for their online exhibition submission