Nebula

Nebula, RAMP Gallery, Wintec, 11-25 October 2017. Curated by Ed Hanfling and students enrolled in the Media Arts contextual elective “After Post-modernism”. Nebula examines the significance of amorphous forces and relationships in the work of three New Zealand artists, Diane Prince (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Kahu), Layne Waerea (Te Arawa, Ngāti Kahungunu) and Amanda Watson. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Ed Hanfling and Heather Olesen. The following is from the introduction to the catalogue: "The artists each show how their tūrangawaewae, their attachment to, or foothold on, the land, is bound up with a range of intangibles – feeling, wairua or spirit, kaitiakitanga or guardianship. Tensions emerge between affective and proprietary attachments to places and spaces, between the legal system and cultural rights and beliefs, and between perception and responsibility, aesthetics and activism. These are weighty issues, perhaps, yet the overriding effect of the artworks is one of lightness. Nebula mixes playfulness with politics and takes delight in clouds and fog, abstract and ethereal forms. The exhibition in part takes its title from an alien supervillain character featured in Marvel comics and in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy superhero films. Nebula is a smart and powerful cyborg mercenary, driven by past traumas inflicted by her father. The artists in Nebula the exhibition are similarly inspired to action – by historical injustices, the inadequacies of the law, or simply by their commitment to the environmental and social conditions of Aotearoa New Zealand. They are not content to record detached views of places or people, but rather find methods and materials to represent their direct involvement with the landscape.