First in design education Professor Claire Robinson Pro Vice-Chancellor, College of Creative Arts Photo: Ann Shelton
… And
Females
Two words changed the world's political landscape forever as New Zealand proved that the world wouldn’t fall in on men’s heads if women also exercised the right to vote. These two words, ‘and females’, were added to the Electoral Bill that Richard Seddon introduced in the House of Parliament in June 1893, and it was passed after huge debate in September of that same year. Sadly, having the vote didn’t automatically lead to the emancipation of women from other forms of sexual discrimination. New Zealand women had to work hard over the following 80 years to be liberated from politically assigned roles as household consumers and mothers to the nation’s children, only to be confronted by other forms of discrimination once we entered the workplace. We might currently have a female Governor General and the second female Prime Minister to give birth in office, but that doesn’t mean that our work is done! 125 years may seem like a long time ago, but we have been providing opportunities to women for even longer! The Wellington School of Design opened its doors in April 1886 and its first students were overwhelmingly female, women who saw design and art as a way of opening their lives up to greater things. Women like Mabel Hill and Maude Sherwood who held senior positions within the faculty, pioneered careers in the arts, and gained international and national recognition for their own creative practices.
Cover:
The wonderful thing about creativity is that it doesn’t discriminate on the grounds of sex or race. We believe everyone is creative and our job is to realise that and help our students take their creativity to places they never dreamed of. For this issue we have focused largely on our female students, alumni and faculty who have become leaders in the creative industries, won international awards, and act as ambassadors for New Zealand by creating artistic works that define creative thinking all over the world. In these pages, you will see how our three schools, Ngā Pae Māhutonga School of Design, Whiti o Rehua School of Art and Te Rewa o Puanga School of Music and Creative Media Production provide a thriving, well-resourced and inspiring learning environment that fosters research, creative practice and scholarship. We are proud of our exceptionally talented faculty and students, past and present, who are at the forefront of using new technologies, new ways of telling stories, and new ways of designing not only products but also services with public good at their heart. The College of Creative Ar ts is an internationally benchmarked leader in creative arts education, research and practice. However, we also take seriously our place in New Zealand and our place within the Wellington community. It was therefore hugely exciting this year to win the Creative Gold section of the Wellington Gold Awards, and be named the Gold Awards’ Supreme Winner for our contribution to the Wellington business community.
As you will see, the past year has been full of highlights and it is a pleasure to share them with you. I hope you enjoy the personal journeys and stories provided here as much as we do.
Amy Sio-Atoa MDes 2012 Arcadia narrates the expectation of tropical abundance as imagined by European explorer Joseph Banks. This textile design is a digitally printed Photoshop melange of photography, textured paper collage, fluid ink leaves with vector-based embroidery that collectively embellish the surface of the Belgian Linen. As a response to an account from Banks’ diary, paradise has not been rejected, but instead it has been inhabited, explored, and embellished in order to critique the nostalgia fostered by nineteenth century colonial paradigms of paradise.
In 2017, Massey University’s School of Design Ngā Pae Māhutonga was ranked number one in Asia Pacific by global design agency Red Dot, a huge achievement after competing with 4,724 entries from 54 countries. The School of Design has been awarded 48 Red Dots over the past 10 years, and continues to be the only New Zealand design school ranked in the Red Dot top 10 in the Asia-Pacific region. Our school’s international reputation builds on the foundations laid from 1886, when our design programme was created, the first in New Zealand. Today, we offer the country’s largest and most comprehensive design programme. Our four-year Bachelor of Design programme aligns us with other highly respected international design schools, and gives our graduates a competitive edge. First year design students are given the opportunity to explore across disciplines before selecting a pathway or major. Options include visual communication, industrial, fashion, textile and spatial design, and photography, with opportunity for collaboration within and across subject areas. These programmes are comprehensive and industry-connected; through crossdisciplinary learning on real world briefs, students are equipped with critical thinking, entrepreneurial attitudes and innovative problem-solving skills that prepare them for varied career paths and rapidly changing economies. The College of Creative Arts is a national leader in connecting the benefits of creative endeavour to New Zealand’s economic
growth. In our School of Design, we ask our students not to wonder ‘what do you want to be’, but ‘what problems do you want to solve?’
The learning environment is immersive, student-centred, studio-based and projectfocused with plenty of opportunity to develop hands-on skills in well-equipped labs and workshops.
Placed in the Top 100 art and design schools in the QS World University rankings (and best in Wellington). Ranked in the Top 100 International Animation Schools (no mean feat given our new Creative Media Production degree only produced its first graduates in 2017!). The only school in Australasia to have Substantial Equivalency with the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) in the United States, putting the College on par with the best art and design schools in the USA.
Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Awards
49
Red Dot 2017: Ranked No 1 in Asia Pacific, with Red Dot: Best of the Best Awards going to two students and one faculty member. 48 Red Dots in 10 years.
49 Student projects were selected as finalists (40% of all student finalists at the Best Awards).
24
24 were awarded Best Award Pins (9 Bronze, 8 silver and 7 gold)
67
67 of our finalists were women in a year where we celebrate 125 years of women's suffrage.
409
Over 16 years we have had 409 student projects selected as finalists, resulting in a total of 228 Best Awards. Our staff and students consistently win more Best awards than any other tertiary provider.
James Dyson Awards
International Red Dot Awards
1st
10 In 2018, 10 of the 17 national finalists were from the College of Creative Arts.
2
Graduate Holly Wright and her Contak Saddle was selected as the national James Dyson Award winner, with Georgia Fulton selected as one of two national runners-up for her Sowsense product. Holly follows in the footsteps of Massey’s Nicole Austin in 2017, and is only the second woman in the 18-year history of the competition to win the award.
Best of the best
Award shows bring the best of the best in any field together, so that excellence can be recognised. In the New Zealand design industry, The Designers Institute of New Zealand’s Best Design Awards is an annual showcase of excellence across a range of design fields – and Massey students and graduates always feature. We also make a good showing in international award shows. Here are four recent winners who showcase the excellence of our Massey design community.
Sue Prescott Senior Lecturer in Fashion, School of Design In 2017, Sue won an international Red Dot: Best of the Best Award for Global Nomad, five designs made of wool-based fabrics and yarns, LED lighting, embroidery threads and furniture.
Global Nomad is clothing that transforms from the body into a portable sanctuary, and is concerned with adaptable and sustainable fashion in relationship to global issues of social and economic migrancy. The wearer removes layers of clothing, each layer constituting an element of the shelter, to create an immersive sensory experience of a predominantly haptic and visual nature. The shelter is speedily constructed using two universally available standard chairs for support. Botanical references digitally embroidered onto merino fabrics connect the wearer with nature and place.
Global Nomad won the Habitat category at the International 2017 Red Dot Design Awards, and it was included in the Red Dot group exhibition at the Red Dot Museum in Singapore and the accompanying catalogue.
Rachael Hall
Holly Wright
BDes (Hons) Industrial Design
BDes (Hons) Industrial Design
Rachael Hall won international acclaim for a unique musical instrument she designed and handcrafted in her fourth year. Her idea was a modern take on a traditional Tongan lali, or wooden drum.
Winner of a Best Award in 2017 for her Equestrian Therapy Saddle, Holly Wright took out the top prize in the New Zealand James Dyson Award, making her a finalist in the International Award.
Called Patō, her drum is electronic, tunable and portable and brings the sound of the Pacific into the modern digital environment of the 21st century. Rachael, who has Tongan heritage, has a passion for music, and was inspired to connect with her Polynesian heritage. “I wanted to rejuvenate an instrument that’s not so recognised anymore and introduce it into the modern digital environment where it can be appreciated and adapted by a range of musicians and blended with other instruments and genres.”
Graduating in 2016 with a Bachelor of Design, majoring in Industrial Design, the Contak Equestrian Therapy Saddle was designed in her final year. This specialised sensory saddle was created for riders living with physical, intellectual, emotional and social challenges, and is designed to increase their balance and feeling of safety while on horseback. The saddle is also designed to increase the comfort and effectiveness of volunteer side-walkers.
Rachael won a Gold Pin at the Best Awards and a Red Dot: Best of the Best at the International Red Dot Awards, and was a national finalist in the International James Dyson Award in 2017. Following a three-month Callaghan Innovation internship at Formway Furniture, she is now a full-time contractor. However, she would still like to see her Patō manufactured in the future.
Holly plans to use her $3500 Dyson prize money to make more of the prototype saddles, so that testing can be continued with the New Zealand Riding for the Disabled centres. Winning the national prize was “absolutely incredible” and to go up against other high calibre designers for the international award was an exciting opportunity. “I’m still coming to terms with it. I’m absolutely blown away.”
The College of Creative Arts has been celebrating its alumni since 2007.
Kura Te Waru Rewiri — artist
HALL Julia Morison — artist
Jane Ussher — photographer
Maia Visnovsky BDes (Hons) Visual Communication Design
Maud Sherwood — artist
Maia won a Gold Pin at the Best Awards for both her third and fourth year projects, alongside fellow design student Dayna Northwood. Now Maia and Dayna both work for digital tech company, Alphero. The third-year project was ‘Wanderlink’, an app designed to assist the caregivers of people with Alzheimers, notifying them if they step outside of a pre-arranged ‘safe zone’. The fourth-year project was ‘FlatEase’, a platform for helping groups collaborate in finding flats and meeting with landlords. The app had a virtual reality component where users could view flats, and enabled both parties to ask questions and arrange appointments. This project also won a Red Dot award. “In my third year I got an internship with Alphero and absolutely loved it,” Maia says. “During my fourth year I worked part-time there and then now I’m here full-time. “Once I had a job I realised how invaluable the training was during my degree, how efficiently I could work, and the life lessons learned from critical thinking and the feedback from your peers... The extra year of the Massey design course is huge in terms of honing your thinking and technical skills– you’re not ready after three years.”
Sharon Murdoch — illustrator and cartoonist
OF
Judy Darragh — artist
Kate Sylvester — fashion designer
FAME
Kate Hawley — costume and set designer
Rebecca Taylor — fashion designer
Maia is pictured with Alphero colleague and mentor Quan Lin.
Donna Cross and Scott Kennedy — graphic designers
Avis Higgs — textile designer and artist
Collette Dinnigan — fashion designer
Creative arts education proving its worth in the world If you question the value of tertiary study in the creative arts, you may want to take a look at the impact creative arts graduates are having in the national and global economy. Creative arts skills are now central to the success of any company with an eye to innovation – and New Zealand’s creative arts graduates are reaping the opportunities that are emerging. At Apple, for example, one of the longestserving and most critical members of the team that designed the iPhone and iPad was a creative arts graduate from New Zealand. Consider another global giant, Nike. Two creative arts graduates from New Zealand were on the team which helped design the Nike swoosh that appeared everywhere at the London Olympics. Think about how many people own a Philips appliance. Who led their design team? A New Zealand creative arts graduate. Who designed the transformational Fisher & Paykel dishdrawer? A home-grown creative arts graduate. How about those revolutionary seats on Air New Zealand long haul? Who designed those? All are Massey’s College of Creative Arts graduates from New Zealand. These people are moulding global culture and businesses. Here in New Zealand they have had the right opportunities to hone their natural abilities. Their careers show that a creative arts education can generate substantial economic benefit for themselves, for business, and for the wider economy. Yet suspicion lingers about the economic value of creative arts. That’s why in 2016 a consortium, DesignCo, was formed by key players in the design eco-system to under take ground-breaking research into design’s economic contribution to New Zealand’s economy. The consortium
includes the College of Creative Arts at Massey University; the Designers Institute of New Zealand; Otago Poly technic School of Design; NZTE (Better By Design programme); AUT School of Art and Design; The Auckland Co-design Lab; Callaghan Innovation; and Victoria University School of Design.
The research showed that during the year June 2016 to June 2017 alone, design contributed $10.1b to New Zealand’s GDP. That’s approximately 4.2% of our total GDP; and 4.4% of New Zealand’s total employment. The research highlighted the strong correlation between national prosperity, economic growth and a thriving design sector. International evidence confirms that design leads to more competitive firms making and selling higher value products and services. The research revealed that if design were treated as an individual industry its contribution to the New Zealand economy would be larger than agriculture and on a par with retail trade ($10.6b), and food, beverage and tobacco product manufacturing. Professor Robinson, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Creative Arts, said at the launch of the research report: “DesignCo partners will continue to connect with the constituent parts of the New Zealand design eco-system in a systematic and regular manner, telling the story of New Zealand’s design excellence, rectifying the paucit y of information about the design sector and gathering statistical data on the value and impact of design in New Zealand. "
Backing design
Internationally renowned designer, and co-founder of Xero, Philip Fierlinger, has become an Adjunct Professor of the School of Design at Massey. He gave the following advice to businesses:
•• “Until recently, design has been treated as an afterthought by the business world. At most, it was a luxury added at the end of the development cycle to make a product “look pretty”. That’s an extremely limited and outdated way of implementing design. Over the past decade that attitude has changed dramatically. Certainly, in Silicon Valley it’s now gospel: design is good business. A study by the Design Management Institute showed that over a ten-year period, design-led businesses outperformed the Standard and Poor's Index by 288%. It’s no coincidence Apple’s enormous investment in design has propelled them to become one of the most valuable businesses in the world. Closer to home, Xero was founded as a design-led business and our success was a direct result of that investment in design. Design was always Xero’s competitive advantage from the very beginning. Designers turn ideas into blueprints that engineers use to build the product. Design is how you transform a customer problem into a creative new solution – a solution designed to be so simple anybody can use it with a few taps.
From report to fully immersive experience – a virtual reality journey
‘Edutainment’ has arrived and virtual reality is emerging as a key medium for learning. Three design students from the College of Creative Arts, Oscar Keys, James Weeks and Mitch Kirk, put this to the test when they developed an installation for the Creative Realities Conference, an event within the nationwide Techweek ‘18 programme. Yet, in my experience, most New Zealand start-ups don’t have a designer on the team. There’s still a deep lack of understanding in the New Zealand business and tech communities about the purpose and value of design. Design isn’t just essential for creating great products, it adds enormous value at every stage of a business: creating the brand, pitching to investors, advertising and promotions, office environment, company culture, even pricing – the list is nearly infinite. So, before you start working on that new app, or you invest in that new start-up, make sure design isn’t just a consideration, but an absolute core function of the team and the business. These days, to some extent, every business is a tech business. If design isn’t core to the business, you’re at a profound disadvantage. We’re lucky to have an enormously talented design community in New Zealand, with high calibre design universities producing new designers every year. For inspiration and a directory of top New Zealand designers, a good starting point is BestAwards.co.nz.”
•• Philip Fierlinger is an investor and advisor for design-led start-ups including Atomic, Storypark, Milanote and Organic Dynamic. At Massey University he hosts the podcast Alchemy – interviews with New Zealand creatives shaping design,tech & business: https://www.alchemypodcasts.com
The students used creative technologies to showcase the Value of Design project and its findings. Using two case studies of companies from the report they used VR to provide a fully immersive experience that illustrated the value of design better than any amount of numbers or words could possibly do. Oscar and James, who are majoring in visual communication design (with an emphasis on experience design), and Mitch, who is majoring in sound design in his commercial music degree, transformed the Value of Design report into a playful, interactive and informative virtual reality experience. With the help of College faculty, Wellingtonbased design companies Designworks and Mixt, and support from Microsoft and their Mixed Reality Headsets, the students designed a VR experience that enabled the participants to quickly grasp the meaning of the data and the impact that design has on our economy. By using case studies of Allbirds, the people who brought the world merino shoes, and Goodnature, the company that designed a humane, toxin-free, easy-to-use and labour-saving pest trapping system, they made the statistics and percentages come alive. Through a design-led approach, they showed how design has dramatically contributed to the economic success of both these companies.
Weta Workshop School at Massey University
Image: Dane Madgwick
The Weta Workshop School at Massey is an exclusive educational experience, giving students a dynamic range of skills to start their career in concept design and visual storytelling in the entertainment industry. Students learn from and engage with some of the industry’s finest concept designers as they work towards a Master of Design (Entertainment) qualification. The course is a joint project between Weta Workshop and Massey University.
“As candidates progress through the one-year course they will expand their technical ability, develop their critical thinking skills, and take on leadership roles in real-world scenarios,” Richard Taylor said at the launch. In September 2018, the first cohort entered the programme. During the course, they will each undertake and develop their own research and design project, exploring how Entertainment Design works as a tool for creating compelling characters, engaging worlds, and incredible stories. The programme culminates with a written research component presented alongside a body of concept design work. Part of the course also includes a one-week internship at Weta Workshop where students learn the techniques and philosophies behind concept design from senior artists of the workshop’s Design Studio.
Hon. Prof. Sir Richard Taylor Special effects wizard Sir Richard Taylor has been appointed an Honorary Professor of Massey University in recognition of his contribution to New Zealand’s creative industries and his long-standing relationship with Massey’s College of Creative Arts. Richard, co-founder and creative director at Weta Workshop, is an alumnus of Wellington Polytechnic, a forerunner institution to the College, and was one of the first to be inducted into the College’s Hall of Fame. He continues to have an ac tive and supportive association with the College through lectures, workshops and mentorship, including its latest collaboration in the Weta Workshop School at Massey. Richard has played a key role in the development of New Zealand’s special effects industry and our international reputation in filmmaking. He is internationally recognised as a leader in concept design – bringing
stories to life by creating conceptual worlds, memorable characters and immersive gaming experiences. Very few have achieved the same level of practical application in these disciplines. In accepting the Honorary Professorship Richard said Massey University, and the College of Creative Arts in particular, have played a significant part in shaping the ongoing creative capabilities of the team at Weta Workshop. “Many of our best and brightest have graduated from this learned institution – just as I myself did, back in the University’s former incarnation as Wellington Polytech. It is therefore truly humbling to be acknowledged with this honorary professorship.”
WAKA HUIA Tanya Marriott is a self-confessed birdnerd. She has always been interested in the environment and saving animals, particularly birds. Now, she’s doing something about it. Visiting the Massey Campus in Palmerston North in 2012 she discovered they were raising funds for a Wildlife Recovery Centre to provide rehabilitation for injured and recovering native animals. She offered to help if they ever needed design assistance.
best way to tell the stories. “We worked with local partners – Palmerston North City Council, Massey Wildbase Vets, Rangitāne and Department of Conservation to ensure the stories were site specific and reflected the grove of life that once passed through this site. “Our thinking was to look at the project as a Waka Huia – an interpretive treasure chest."
Tanya’s interests and expertise made her a perfect person to help them, as she’s a multidisciplinary designer who works in interactive design and play, character and toy design, experience design and animation.
“We also recognised the importance of the wayfinding narrative played out through furniture, space graphics and interactives, that would guide visitors from the education centre, to the aviaries and back to the centre – ensuring visitors could play and engage in an informed way.”
She also teaches concept design, toy, play and game design, animation and illustration in the College of Creative Arts, and is programme coordinator for the new Weta Workshop School at Massey.
The design of the furniture was integral to the story telling: large tree-like columns create a central glade, where above a flock of huia birds can be seen flying to the ranges. The huia are the narrators for the space.
In 2017, Wildbase was given the green light and it was full-steam ahead with design and production.
Tanya has led the design for the games, illustrations, the animation content, and all the furniture design. She says, “It has been a privilege to work with colleagues and graduates and current students to design this content, to watch amazing surgery and be awed by the gentleness and respect shown by the vets and everyone who works with the animals.”
Tanya had already teamed up with Open Lab, an established design studio within the College, staffed by design professionals, recent graduates and student interns. Their first step was a consultation process, analysing the space, talking to vets about their work, and researching what was the
The Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery Centre opens in November 2018.
Fashionistas taking on the world… Chloé́ Julian – Massey University Distinguished Young Alumni Sheer determination saw Chloé Julian start – against the advice of others – a Diploma in Fashion Design at Massey University, following the completion of a Bachelor of Biomedical Science. That determination, plus her talent and hard work, is now driving her success in the highly competitive world of fashion. Her achievements saw her awarded Massey University’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award in 2017. Chloé now has an international reputation for her lingerie, swimwear, loungewear and nightwear designs. It’s a reputation built from a career that started in 2005, when she graduated from Massey. Her first job in the industry was with iconic New Zealand
lingerie manufacturer Bendon, designing for the Hey Sister brand. Just two years later, at the age of 26, she was thrown in at the deep end when she was appointed lead designer for Bendon’s Stella McCartney brand. Based in London and answering directly to Stella McCartney, she produced six collections in three years. In 2011, Chloé was appointed head designer for David Beckham Bodywear, a collection sold exclusively by multi-national retail chain H&M and worn by the football player himself and, reportedly, Michelle and Barack Obama. She then became head designer for cult lingerie brand Agent Provocateur. Agent Provocateur’s marketing has been revolutionar y and at tracted celebrit y heav y weights to front the collections including Helena Christensen, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Paloma Faith and Kylie Minogue. Chloé’s ideas were at the forefront as the brand grew in prominence, and her designs have featured on the front pages
of international fashion magazines, had starring roles in movies and been referenced in best-selling works of fiction. Her role at Agent Provocateur extended beyond design and into marketing, working on fashion shoots and videos with actors such as Penelope Cruz. Last year Chloé returned to New Zealand and took up a new role with Los Angelesbased fashion house, TechStyle Fashion Group. TechStyle is a global fashion business that since 2010 has become one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in history. With five portfolio brands, it provides over four million members with on‑trend fashion at exceptional value. At 37, Chloé Julian has a name that allows her to work from anywhere in the world. This enabled her to accept the role as Vice President of Design for Savage X Fenty, a lingerie brand for pop singer superstar Rihanna, on the condition that she could work from her homeland.
By following her passion for fashion, she can now take on the world on her own terms.
…and leading the way in New Zealand Gemma Cornish, BDes (Hons) Fashion, winner at the iD Emerging Designer Awards 2018 Gemma Cornish is still riding high on her success at the iD Emerging Designer Awards in Dunedin this year. The 22-year-old won the coveted Most Commercial Collection Prize at the awards for her women’s fashion wetsuits. Since then she has launched her own line of wetsuits for spring this year: Gemma Lee. Available now at www.gemmaleesuits.com
Nadya France-White and Natalie Procter with Aria McInnes (left) at ENA Fashion Store, Wellington. Photo: Jess Chubb
Natalie Procter, BDes (Hons) Fashion, founder of fashion label Mina Graduating two years ago, Natalie has started her own label that is available online and in outlets in Wellington, Dunedin, Christchurch and shortly, Hamilton. Quite something for a recent graduate, and not the usual course, as many graduates start by working for an established brand and designing their own work on the side, as they work towards designing and producing their own brand. Natalie’s inspiration and confidence came from a trip to India as part of a scholarship in the last year of her degree. The focus of the trip was ethics and sustainability and it opened her eyes to the fashion industry and its impact on people and the environment in the absence of fair trade and ethical practices. These themes now influence her own range. “The trip to India gave me the confidence and belief to go out and create a label of my own. “Mina stays true to all things simple, no frills. Clean lines and simple cuts with a hint of self-expression. With an ethos to invest and be thoughtful, the brand is tied to strong values and being New Zealand made and ethically produced.” ENA, an exclusive retail fashion store, owned and managed by fellow Massey fashion graduate, Nadya France-White was one of the first retailers to stock Mina.
Nadya France-White, BDes (Hons) Fashion, founder of ENA
It's nearly three years since Nadya FranceWhite opened ENA in Ghuznee Street, Wellington.
The prize has meant that just one year out from her fashion degree, she has had incredible industry exposure. “My plan was always to set up my own label, but the exposure at the iD Emerging Designer Awards meant it was fast-tracked. I have 14 wetsuit pieces and they all have my distinct bright colours and graphic prints."
Nadya began as a spatial design student but changed to fashion where she could combine her interest in ‘housing things’, style, and aesthetics, but also enjoy the hands on nature of her work. “I loved working through the design process from end-to-end.” While studying Nadya loved working in fashion stores, working with lots of brands and getting to know the people behind the brands. Opening her own store has meant she can curate the style and work across many different brands. She supports local designers by providing a platform for artists to exhibit their work next to emerging and established international brands. “Once I left university I realised how wonderful it is to work with people with similar interests
and a creative mindset. Together we searched for our creative direction and figured it out – that was very powerful." Nadya’s selection of the brands she stocks is influenced by shared principles: all independent brands ethically made and many New Zealand made. “There is a lovely eco-system that is being created in New Zealand with seamstresses, designers, and outlets – it is very community based”.
Photo: Tia Woodley
Mata Aho at Oceania
Ten of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading contemporary visual artists have their work featured in the Royal Academy of Art’s first major exhibition of Māori and Pacific culture. The exhibition, to mark the 250th anniversary of both Captain Cook setting sail for the Pacific and the establishment of the Royal Academy, includes around 200 works showcasing the art and culture of New Zealand, Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. The exhibition spans more than 500 years. Featured in the exhibition is a work by Mata Aho, a collective of four Māori women artists, made up of Erena Baker (Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangātira), Sarah Hudson (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe), Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) and Terri Te Tau (Rangitāne ki Wairarapa). All four are graduates of Massey University. This stellar group is presenting Kiko Moana, 2017. The work is made of light-duty blue tarpaulin that has been intricately folded, stitched and slashed. The collective employed accessible materials and researched customary Māori sewing techniques to portray the tradition of innovation, and they say “an ode to the often-overlooked practice of customary Māori sewing”. “The conceptual framework of taniwha characteristics came from taniwha narratives shared with us from our friends and whanau. These charac teristic s are protec tion, communication and travel, and we felt these notions were really fitting for exhibition in an international context,” the collective said. No part of Kiko Moana was created independently – the women travelled all over the country to ensure the work was created within a wananga – a space where the collective slept, ate and worked. The work was originally presented in documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany in 2017, alongside other New Zealand ar tists Nathan Pohio and the late Ralph Hotere. It was the first time New Zealand artists had been invited to exhibit at the world’s most prestigious art exhibition. The collective are mindful that the recognition that comes from beyond New Zealand and the acknowledgement that they, as a collective of wahine Māori who develop work through modes of wananga and focus on accessible materials, will have reverberating ripples through the New Zealand art scene, as well as be felt by their primary audience, Māori women.
Photo: David Parry / © Royal Academy of Arts, London Installation view of Kiko Moana in the Oceania exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts
Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards
Youthful passion for world changing design wins award A Samoan architectural graduate with a passion for social change was the inaugural winner of the Arts and Creativity Award at the 2018 Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards, sponsored by Massey’s College of Creative Arts and Creative New Zealand.
From left to right: Herbie Bartley, Massey University; Anahila Kanongata'a‑Suisuiki, MP; David Pannett, CNZ; Dr Huhana Smith, Massey University; John Belford‑Lelaulu, winner; Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern; Rosanna Raymond, artist; Caren Rangi, CNZ; Hon Aupito Tofae Su’a William Sio
John Belford-Lelaulu of Auckland was presented with his award at a special ceremony at the Fale o Samoa in Mangere alongside a stellar group of young Pasifika leaders. John has been involved in local and international projects that use creativity, arts and design to target issues such as poverty, inequality, cultural deprivation and institutional racism. He will use the $10,000 prize money to support some of his existing projects.
Head of Whiti o Rehua School of Ar t, Dr Huhana Smith, who co-presented the award with Creative New Zealand, says John was a perfect choice. “He absolutely fits with our vision for the College of Creative Arts, to produce creative thinkers, makers and innovators who make the world a better place and make us feel better about living in it.” John is running a series of social design projects with tertiary and secondary students that range from designing, painting and building a regenerative zone with ME Family Service, to re-purposing ruins from the 2009 tsunami to build a new community hub in Samoa. He believes “the creative arts are not only tools for individual collective expression, but also serve as a powerful tool for social, cultural and inter-generational change.”
Our women all over the world... Briar Hickling BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2005 Co-Founder of Linehouse Studios Hong Kong, China
Hayley Gray BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2008 Executive Producer, Magic Leap Florida, USA •• Hayley has more than 10 years design experience at Weta Workshop, where she has worked as a producer, director and supervisor across film, television, gaming, and mixed reality.
Dana Finnigan
Lucy Cant
BDes (Hons) Textile Design 2006 MDes (Glasgow School of Art) 2008 Owner/Founder Dana Finnigan Print and Design Glasgow, UK
BDes (Hons) Industrial Design 2006 Founder and Lead Designer Studio Cassells Hong Kong, China
Annabel Goslin BDes (Hons) Industrial Design 2010 Senior Product Owner Adidas Berlin, Germany
Morgan Terry BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2009 Senior Interior Architect Lisbon, Portugal
Hermione Flynn BDes (Hons) Performance Design 2007 Owner/designer at Hermione Flynn Berlin, Germany
•• Studio Cassells is a multidisciplinary design studio specialising in Object and Environment design. They collaborate with clients from Asia to Europe on a diverse variety of projects including cultural and commercial exhibition design, temporary architecture, sculptural installations, product and furniture design and design research.
Kate Cameron-Donald
Lauren Skogstad
Vanisa Dhiru
Celeste Skachill
BDes (Hons) Industrial Design 2010 Freelance Designer and Artist Wairarapa, NZ
BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2009 MDes (Dist) 2010 Experience Design Director, Springload Wellington, NZ
BDes(Hons) VCD 2003 President of National Council for Women NZ Community Manager Internet Wellington, NZ
BDes (Hons) VCD 2013 Co-founder of Studio C Brand Experience Design Wellington, NZ
Sophie Poelman BDes (Hons) Textile Design 2006 Design Consultant Studio Alida Waiheke Island, NZ
Emily French
Stephanie O’Shea
Yoshi Maruyama
BCMP 2017 Production Assistant at GFC Films Auckland, NZ
BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2016 Urban Designer at WCC, Wellington, NZ
BDes (Hons) Fashion Design 2017 Junior Design Assistant Kowtow Wellington, NZ
Kiriana Pettersen
Julia McPherson
Kate Lambert
BDes (Hons) Fashion Design 2008 Design Manager, Glassons Auckland, NZ
BDes (Hons) Spatial Design 2006 Associate at Warren and Mahoney Architects, Wellington, NZ
BCMP 2017 Assistant Editor at Pukeko Pictures Wellington, NZ
...a selection of our global alumni Hannah Titheridge (Edmunds)
BFA (Hons) 2009 MFA 2010 Senior Digital Producer at Imagination London, UK
Monica Buchan-Ng
Sarah Burton
BDes (Hons) Fashion and Business 2012, MFA (1st) 2014 Knowledge Exchange Coordinator Centre for Sustainable Fashion London, UK
Dip Photo 2007 Lead Photographer Wolf and Badger Studios London, UK
BDes (Hons) Textile Design 2006 Head of Design at EMEA London, UK
Joanne Duff
Carol Wu
BDes (Hons) VCD 2006 Art Director Graphic Designer at Suite Genius Vancouver, CA
BDes (Hons) VCD 2012 Senior Graphic Designer Blacksheep London, UK
Emma Cassidy
Megan Stewart
Katherine Mattlock
BDes (Hons) Fashion Design 2016 Assistant Designer and Product Developer, Trademark Fashion New York, USA
BDes (Hons) VCD 2015 Founder of Stunning Walls and Hedland Design Western Australia
Pauline Autet
Nicole Yeoman
BFA Hons 2013 Freelance Curator, Editor, Project Coordinator for Contemporary Art Paris, France
BDes (Hons) VCD 2009 Freelance Art Director Melbourne, Australia
Ngahuia Damerell
BDes (Hons) Photography 2004 Founding Director Makers Mgmt and Makers Mrkt Melbourne, Australia
BDes (Hons) Textile Design 2006 Design Consultant Paris, France
Kelly Thompson
In October last year there were gasps and tears as the video showed model after model walking up to a beach bonfire where fashion designer Lindah Lepou removed each garment before placing it into the fire, all against a backdrop of dramatic music. The video played on a specially designed monolithic floor to ceiling screen in the Government House Ballroom, at an event to showcase Lindah’s time as the Matairangi Mahi Toi Artist in Residence. The residency is run in a cottage on the grounds of Government House by the Office of the Governor-General and the College of Creative Arts. The residency supports Māori and Pasifika artists by allowing them to live in a cottage on the grounds of Government House while they create new works. Lindah’s residency gave her the chance to reflect on a career
that has defined how the world sees Pacific fashion and art, but it also marked the beginning of a new era for her. While the video depicted her shedding her past, three new pieces created during her residency were also unveiled at the event. These included an exquisite cream gown in Lindah’s trademark siapo or tapa cloth along with an avant-garde work where blush roses orbited the model on a wire tutu worn over a form-hugging head-to-toe black jumpsuit. Lindah’s career has always demonstrated a tension between her masculine/feminine worlds as fa’afafine, and her own Pacific/ Palagi ‘gafa’ (lineage) which is at the core of her practice. She coined the term, ‘Pacific Couture’ as a new language to help communicate and contribute a unique Pacific identity within the global fashion/art discourse. She says, “It literally took 25 years to build a language to help people understand the significance of what I was doing and to help me communicate to the world what makes the Pacific and New Zealand special.”
Lindah believes the residency came at a transition period in her life and her confronting video was an expression of that evolution. “I thought this would be the perfect timing to transform myself from one cycle to the next, which required a massive ‘letting go’ of the past.” Thankfully, her “letting go” did not include seven gowns belonging to the Te Papa collection and guests at the gala function were able to view them displayed under the chandeliers of the Blundell Room. It was a colourful night of contrast as the throb of Pacific drumming filled the ballroom and waiters swayed with trays of canapés under the gaze of royal portraits. “The College of Creative Ar ts is both grateful and proud for the opportunity to run a residency scheme inside the grounds of the head of state. You can’t quite imagine this happening anywhere else in the world, allowing cutting edge artists to come and make some new work,” said College of Creative Arts Pro Vice-Chancellor Claire Robinson.
PACIFIC
Lindah’s residenc y followed on from Māori artist Professor Ross Hemera, who completed a commissioned work on the College of Creative Ar ts campus and also formally provided the name for the residency: Matairangi Mahi Toi.
Photo: Eve Leniston-Howell, AITU ‘ Return to Spirit’, 2017
Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy told guests that she was pleased to be able to support the creative work of New Zealand’s Māori and Pasifika artists who she said ‘provided the beating heart of our cultural expression.’
Rosanna Raymond, Pacific Sister member, artist, performer, curator and commentator; and Horomona Horo, a musician, director and renowned repository of information and performer with Taonga pūoro are both undertaking their respective residencies in three seasons throughout 2018/19.
COUTURE
Asian Aotearoa Arts Huì
A place for creative cross-cultural conversations The Asian Aotearoa Arts Huì was held in Wellington in September 2018, hosted by the College of Creative Arts and Te Papa Tongarewa. The Huì was a public arts festival and national gathering celebrating diverse expressions of ‘Asianness’ in Aotearoa. It presented a special opportunity to explore themes of knowledge, encounter and visibility through exhibitions, talks, walks, and workshops by leading and emerging contemporary Asian New Zealand creative prac titioners including: Yuk King Tan (Hong Kong), Vera Mey (UK), Alison Wong (Australia), Luise Fong, Lynda Chanwai‑Earle, Renee Liang, Alice Canton, Ant Sang, Simon Kaan, Kerry Ann Lee, Emma Ng, Balamohan Shingade, Kirsten Wong, Lynette Shum, Eric Ngan, Stan Chan, Ya‑wen Ho, and many others. The depth and breadth of the 2018 Huì was the result of five years of sustained creative conversations and collaboration since the inaugural Chinese New Zealand Artists Huì in 2013, and the Asian New Zealand Artists Huì in 2017, with the intention to support Asian New Zealand ar ts practitioners through presenting practice, sharing ideas and networking. The Huì attracted hundreds of artists, designers, writers and students from around the country. The Huì's creative director, Kerry Ann Lee, is a visual artist, designer and senior lecturer in design at the College of Creative Arts. She creates installation, print and imagebased works, and has a particular interest in diasporic art practices. She said the Huì aimed to make visible settlement histories in Aotearoa and the creative cross-cultural conversations that have been generated through relationships with Māori, Pacific, Pākehā, and other migrant communities, as well as with each other.
Photo: John Lake Yuri Zhigang Zheng 'Shy Monster' performance
Our Data Our Way Material Matters Textile designers are characterised by their expertise in materials, colours, drawing and making. At Massey’s School of Design, our textile design students learn how to apply this expertise in multiple creative spaces including fashion, product design, interior design and architecture.
Massey’s textile design course is leading the way in material-driven innovation. Throughout the programme, our students use comprehensive equipment that includes print, weave, knit, dye and embroidery as well as digital fabrication technologies to design and make traditional textiles. They also work with emergent smart and electronic textiles, biomaterials and alternative material surfaces and structures. The quality of our textile course allows our students to compete internationally. A recent success was the win by a Massey student, Lucy Polson, of the Australia/New Zealand regional heat of the 2018 Society of Dyers and Colourists International Design Competition. Lucy is a fourth year textile design student who is being flown to London to compete in the Grand Final.
Toi Āria is a research environment at Massey University that harnesses the power of design to help organisations create and deliver people-centred policies and services. The team, led by Associate Professor Anna Brown, operates within the College of Creative Arts and plays a unique role in facilitating engagement and designing outcomes that prioritise the voice of those most affected by the delivery of a policy or service. Toi Āria is at the forefront of the use of human centred design philosophy in social policy and government. The research centre has worked with national and local government teams on large multi-disciplinary research projects that use a people-centred methodology to deliver positive social change. “Our aim is to explore better practice for a more inclusive public sector in Aotearoa, New Zealand,” Anna Brown says. A large and significant project undertaken last year was a collaboration with the Data Futures Partnership (DFP), an independent advisory body tasked by the Government to draft guidelines for private and public organisations seeking to use people’s personal data. It was vital that the views and comfort levels of the public informed these guidelines. The DFP partnered with Toi Āria to design a method of researching the parameters within which the public felt happy for the government to share data, and co-design a social licence for its use. Together they established Our Data, Our
Way, an engagement programme involving 27 face-to-face workshops throughout New Zealand. A diverse sample of over 400 people participated in a game-based
conversation to understand what was most important for the proposed guidelines to address. An interactive online tool designed to inform, educate and capture data supported these workshops and conversations – it gained feedback from a fur ther 4,000 New Zealanders. Importantly this research project was the first time New Zealanders had been given an opportunity to have their say on how their data could be used and shared. Fo r b o t h f a c e -to -f a c e a n d o n l i n e applications, Toi Āria designed a unique engagement process using data-use scenarios. Through this process, it was possible to understand people’s comfort levels and to assess how they weighed up trust and benefit where their personal information was concerned. The data use scenarios were modelled on three areas of direct interest to the government’s social investment programmes: health data, education data, and data gathered through the Internet of Things. The resulting guidelines were directly informed by New Zealanders’ feedback on these data use scenarios. Through Our Data, Our Way Toi Āria developed a unique engagement process based on social licence principles, which enables in-depth assessment of overall comfort with the use of personal information for specific data uses and contexts. The findings from this feedback provide a robust and qualitatively rich framework that decision-makers can use to ensure that their data initiatives and policies will meet the needs of the people who are most affected by them.
Design + Democracy
Engaging young New Zealanders in the political process The Design+Democracy Project team within the College of Creative Arts explores 21st century citizenship, with a focus on how to get young people to engage in civic life. The engagement of young people responds to one of the central purposes of government: to consider the needs of future generations, which is vital in shaping New Zealand’s future. The Design+Democracy Project addresses these issues by facilitating young New Zealanders to become more informed, confident participants in choosing their government representatives. The disruptive potential for the ‘missing million’ of electors to engage with policy and valuesbased decision-making is immeasurable, particularly within an MMP electoral system. Not only does it have the ability to disrupt the body politic, but also the mechanisms that serve it, such as the media. The Project illustrates design’s potential in addressing these issues and reversing
rates of civic participation by young people. The Design+Democracy project team has developed a series of online tools to engage young people in local body elections (VoteLocal 2016) and the general elections (On the Fence 2011, 2014, 2017; Ask Away 2014) to increase voter turnout.
provides a fun incentive for users to continue answering questions, sustaining interest, and increases share-ability and traffic of the tool. Additionally, it illustrates how a decision at a government level affects the city/country and how their vote makes a difference.
The visual style of the game-like tools has been engaging, fun and accessible, while maintaining the integrity of the context and the content. The style is unique among the expected visual vernacular of New Zealand politics, and stands apart from the typically utilitarian Voter Advice Applications design.
In the six weeks before Election Day in 2017, On the Fence surpassed the Design+Democracy 2014 result (170,000) by attracting 237,000 unique sessions. Of the users 30.57% said they had not voted in a General Election before and 77.74% of those who hadn’t voted before said On the Fence improved their understanding about what Government does.
A unique design feature developed for VoteLocal and used again for On the Fence 2017 responds to the complexity of issues and recognises that decisions are a matter of priorities. It uses a ‘slider scale’ question format to help users balance two competing interests of a particular topic. It also captures the weighting the user puts on each issue. Within the Design+Democracy Projects’ tools, the user builds a unique avatar depending on their answer to each question. Their customised cit y/countr y completed at the end of the questions is then available for sharing via social media. The avatar
The team consists of senior lecturers from the School of Design Karl Kane and Tim Parkin; senior tutor, Tim Turnidge; the input of a large number of design students; and specialist and stakeholder advisers. The project is sponsored by Pro Vice-Chancellor Claire Robinson. In 2017, VoteLocal won the prestigious Australian Good Design Award for Social Innovation, and Public Good Gold in the Best Awards. On the Fence for the 2017 general election won a Gold Award for Social Good in the 2018 Best Awards along with Silver in the inaugural Value of Design award.
Sisters are doing it for themselves…
expression, and this often manifests in the design of custom-built music performance hardware and software. “I work on finding ways to compose using the spatial aspect of sound and to do this I have been developing new technologies to manipulate sound in space.” Photo: Jess Chubb
Dr Bridget Johnson Senior Lecturer, School of Music and Creative Media Production
Bridget Johnson grew up in rural Australia, before being drawn to New Zealand for some mountain adventures and a change in scenery – lucky for us she decided to stay.
At the beginning of the year Bridget premiered one of her own compositions “Pas de Quatre” in a concert within the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. It featured loudspeakers that tilted, bowed, spun, and danced. Bridget is a force to be reckoned with in the New Zealand music scene and is a perfect role model for women looking for a career in music and more particularly using technology to further their creative practice.
“My interest in music led me to the New Zealand School of Music and slowly I started moving to electronics and using computers. I s ta r te d p e r fo r m i n g o n e l e c t ro n i c instruments I had built towards the end of my undergraduate studies. “I never imagined myself in any tech-based industry, when I was younger I didn’t see the potential creative output of technology and now I see it as deeply embedded.” Bridget works with students in the music technology major of the Commercial Music degree, covering both the theory and handson making. She also offers many classes on learning new software and teaching code. Bridget not only shares her knowledge and expertise with her students, she is also a sound artist and composer whose work crosses many platforms and mediums. Her focus is designing new intuitive interfaces for musical
A H e a d b a n g e r ’ s J o u r n e y. I n t h e documentary, Dunn talked about the Heavy Metal scene in Norway and its context within the right-wing politics, understandings of race, and nationalism of that country.
“That documentary had a huge impact on me, and after my Honours degree I did a PhD that interrogated the relationship between race, gender and nationhood in heavy metal music scenes, cultures and practices. My thesis was: Pale Communion: Whiteness, Masculinity and Nationhood in Heavy Metal Scenes in Norway, South Africa and Australia.” “I was looking at national identity and white supremacy and how it unfolded in these countries.” Joining the Commercial Music faculty at Massey meant a shift for Catherine from the emphasis of cultural studies taught within a university’s humanities department, to a more creative expression of her teaching.
Having recently completed her PhD, Bridget’s academic role focuses on developing ways to teach engineering techniques to artists, to further the ir artistic pursuits. According to Bridget, she hated school and her teachers would be surprised she even went to university let alone gained a PhD and is now teaching at a university.
It wasn’ t long af ter completing her undergraduate degree that Catherine saw Sam Dunn’s documentar y Metal:
Photo: Jess Chubb
Dr Catherine Hoad Lecturer, School of Music and Creative Media Production
Catherine Hoad was always ‘super into music’; her father is a Black Sabbath fan and her mother is into Metallica and Iron Maiden. The sound of heavy metal was the backdrop to her childhood. “I had zero musical talent myself, but from an early age the fact I was an involved fan informed my view of music and my response to it. I always maintained an interest in what music meant for fans and communities while my university studies focused on media and cultural studies”.
“In my courses we explore what #metoo means in contemporary music, and the industry our students are entering. We address the philosophical aesthetics of music, and there is a lot of interest in gender and feminist aesthetics.” Recent research in the field has found that women currently represent only 3% of all heavy metal musicians worldwide. However, there is a wider issue with women representing less than 25% of registered songwriters in New Zealand. Currently young women are under-valued in the industry, and the key will be to change the culture to recognise the importance of young women and their contributions. “We have incredibly talented and intelligent women coming to the music programme and they are switched on, and not afraid to speak out, and value themselves and their experiences. This is promising for the music industry going forward,” Catherine said.
Award-winning musician Warren Maxwell, a senior lecturer at the School of Music and Creative Media Production at the College of Creative Arts, along with lecturer and engineer Bridget Johnson were a part of the 2018 New Zealand Festival. Warren (Little Bushman and Trinity Roots and formerly with Fat Freddy’s Drop) was commissioned to compose all of the music for the spectacular theatrical performance Kupe: A Waka Odyssey, which included a 250-strong choir. The musical suite welcomed a fleet of traditional Waka Haurua into Wellington Harbour to herald the start of the New Zealand Festival in February 2018. Tens of thousands of Wellingtonians lined the inner harbour to enjoy the spectacle and be transported by the music and narrative. Wellington could not have put on a more balmy sunlit evening. The climactic finale was a new haka composed by Kura Moeahu for the event, which was performed by 1000 people (including local schools) on the Wellington waterfront.
KUPE: A WAKA ODYSSEY
“Collaborating and weaving this event together with local Iwi, waka voyagers, choir directors, producers, choreographers and Anna Marbrook (the Festival artistic director) was something that awakened a deep response in me,” Warren said. Global connection through traditional ocean voyaging was a key theme in his work for the festival as he referenced ngā pūrākau ā Atua (Māori mythology) and navigation techniques using the stars, ocean currents and wind. “To have been asked to compose the music for this opening event was an absolute privilege and I hope to see optimistic ripples coursing through clean waterways for generations to come because of it,” he said.
Photo: Matt Grace.
Emerging Talent – playing to the beat of a different drum This year the first cohort from the Bachelor of Commercial Music will graduate from Massey University. Many of them have already been actively contributing to New Zealand’s music industry and Wellington’s lively music scene, and setting the standard high for all those who follow.
The tour also led her to the idea behind her final year major project, Plex, which is a custom-built performance tool that allows musicians to integrate audio and visual manipulation from the comfort of the stage. It enables them to take their performances to the next level.
Emma Hall Phillips Emma had set up her own promotions company, Moments, before she had even finished her first year of a Bachelor of Commercial Music majoring in Industry. Emma established Moments to promote females and LGBT performers in an effort to push forward diversity in an industry that is male dominated. “A friend suggested the course to me, knowing that I loved running events, but before I started studying for a Bachelor of Commercial Music I was really just winging it. I have really enjoyed my course and made amazing industry connections, which will help me go forward.
Connor Moore Connor Moore is a prolific songwriter who performs regularly and hosts her own ‘Songwriters Sessions’ at Poquito in Tory Street. “The venue is small, intimate and busy – it’s a special place to perform and the sessions have a real emphasis on original style. I host a session every Thursday, opening it up to other songwriters to share their own songs.” Connor is in her final year of her Bachelor of Commercial Music, and is majoring in practice: “I always knew I wanted to do music but didn’t know what was available, when I heard about the new School of Music and Creative Media Production and what the course had to offer, it just felt absolutely right for me.” “The best part of the degree has been doing something I feel passionate about and sharing it with others who are equally passionate. This really challenges me to be a better musician. The tutors and facilities have been absolutely incredible so it is bitter-sweet to be finishing at the end of the year.” During the year, she has opened for Julia Deans in Queenstown and Fly My Pretties.
“At high school I was in bands playing drums, guitar and keyboard, now I am much more into electronic music rather than traditional instruments. Early in the degree I tried a lot of things but straight away I knew that technology was where my interest lay. I wanted to learn new things and explore a different side of the industry”.
“Before I mostly did bands, but now I’m leaning more towards DJing, running electronic music Club Nights and working on festivals. “The Club Nights I already run through Moments, and after I leave I will be working on my business full time.” Emma DJs under the moniker Aw B.
Katherine Winitana Kate Wilson Kayla Aranga This team has been working together on a project that aims to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, in particular depression, by encouraging individuals to start the conversations and to feel comfortable when talking about their own experiences.
Glow is an eight channel immersive sound installation, designed to create empathy with the audience in regard to mental health issues. They want everyone to get closer to each other, to stop, to talk, to listen. The team believe that this exhibit is a stepping stone to a brighter future, a future where no matter how dark a situation we all have the potential to GLOW.
Kaysha Bowler Kaysha spent last summer touring with Neil and Liam Finn as their lighting designer. The tour was four weeks long, with 19 venues all requiring a different lighting solution. Not bad for a third year student. Of course, it helped that the tour manager was one of the lecturers from the School of Music and Creative Media Production. Two other students working as roadies joined her on the tour.
PHOTOGR A PH Y
Photography at Massey is the longest running photography programme in New Zealand (established in 1975). It is a place where the diversity of photographic language, technologies and expression is celebrated. Photography students can choose to gain expertise in art-based, commercial, and documentary skills. The programme is supported by colourmanaged digital labs, a superb digital print facility, professional studios, portable technologies, darkrooms and alternative process labs. The facilities are one thing, but what holds this programme above all others is the calibre of the lecturers. These include photography luminaries such as Distinguished Professor Anne Noble; renowned and award winning photographer, Associate Professor Ann Shelton; Senior Lecturers David Cook and Helen Mitchell; Associate Professor Wayne Barrar; Lecturers Caroline McQuarrie and Shaun Waugh, as well as expert technicians Jane Wilcox and Peter Miles. Photography is the medium of the 21st century and everyone is doing it. Taking photos of their view, their food, and a lot of themselves. There is compulsive image-taking happening in every corner of the globe, and every corner of the room. Photography has undergone a profound shift with the camera now embedded in a huge number of personal devices. Cameras, software, video and dynamic materials mean photography as an artform is expanding to include multi-layered experiences of painting, sculpture, video and even human-activation, and the bombardment of photography on social media has seen a renewed interest in exploring more low-tech devices and images that are textural and raw.
A look at the world of photography can be easily profiled through just a handful of our faculty:
counter cultures, and those who are at the edges of culture both literally or as subjects in film or literature, has been the force behind major bodies of work from Redeye to Public Places .”
Anne Noble ONZM, Arts Foundation Laureate, Distinguished Professor
Helen Mitchell, Senior Lecturer
Anne Noble is one of New Zealand’s most respected contemporary photographers. Her work spans landscape, documentary and multimedia installations that incorporate still, moving image and sound. Over a 10 year period she visited and photographed Antarctica, investigating how the legacy of heroic age photographs and narratives shapes the contemporary Antarctic imaginary. The resulting books and exhibitions, Antarctica Iceblink , The Last Road , and WhiteOut WhiteNoise re-imagine our relationship to this most extraordinary place. Anne's recent work is concerned with species loss, and human impacts on fragile environ mental systems. Focusing on the decline of the honey bee and its place in our world, she has produced a series of photography, video and installation projects premised on close observation of bees, and creative collaborations with scientists. A beekeeper herself, she has exhibited this work in France, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand since 2015. A comprehensive survey of her bee projects will be presented at the 2018 Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. In these new works there is a shift, which art historian, Priscilla Pitts describes as a move …‘away from the ostensibly documentary mode of the Antarctic images towards a more overtly poetic exploration of her subject, something that is familiar from much of her earlier work.”
Helen is a photographer whose work examines contemporary culture through the practices of portraiture and documentary photography. Her research focuses on the documentation of tattooing locally and internationally with the exploration of tattooing and its relationship to postcolonialism and cultural exchange. Helen’s current research prac tice in photography focuses on tattoo renaissance narratives within contemporary New Zealand society. Since 2009 she has also worked with tattooists and tattoo subjects in Hong Kong; comparing the ‘tattoo renaissance’ between the two cultures. Her images reflect concerns around the construction of personal identity and cultural exchange. This exploration combines studio portraits and documentary photography with interviews from tattooed subjects. Helen explores how the customised body functions to transform and reinforce a sense of identity, individuality and to record personal experience of tattoo culture. Helen has been photographing Tattoo since 2006, with five exhibitions focusing resp e c ti ve l y on ta t to os acquire d in New Zealand and Hong Kong, presented nationally and internationally. Previously she has explored landscape in the Central Plateau and Kaimanawa regions, resulting in a number of exhibitions.
Caroline McQuarrie, Lecturer Recent trends in photography research have included the camera-less image, which was beautifully showcased at a recent exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery that included works by Anne Noble and Shaun Waugh. There is also a revitalised interest in analogue processes such as cyanotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes and photograms – the chance to revel in the real world with imperfect results, blurred edges and a rawness not found within the perfection the digital age produces.
Ann Shelton, Associate Professor Ann Shelton is an internationally recognised ar tist. Her research comprises largescale, hyper-real photographic artworks that interrogate the unfixed histories embedded in place and in plant narratives, located in archival collections and in the landscape at large. Engaging the nexus of conceptual and documentary modes, her artworks investigate the social, political and historical contexts that inform readings of her subject matter. Ann is similarly motivated by the nature of the archive. Her works use photography as a philosophical tool to uncover and recontextualise moments that have been overlooked or displaced. Ann’s career review exhibition, Dark Matter, opened in 2016 at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The Gallery described her practice as: “An exploration of time, place, narrative, trauma and female authorship unfold in shifting and destabilising ways. Her engagement with the fragmented nature of the social body, particularly those of
Caroline is an interdisciplinary artist whose primary interest is the concept of home, whether it is located in a domestic space, a community or the land we identify with. She works with photography, video and craft practices to explore meaning carried in photographic and craft-based objects and domestic, suburban or community sites. She explores the role of the feminine in ever yday life, and investigates the capacity for the act of making to create agency in women’s lives. Caroline is also concerned with how memory and sentiment is manifested in objects – specifically photographs and/or hand crafted objects. Her work also explores how the photographic representation of a site with a particular history can reflect on the present. She is currently working on projects that explore how small stories in out-of-the-way places can reflect on what happens in the wider world.
Photobook – album to artwork The rise and rise of the photobook has been enabled by the development of accessible and affordable digital printing and the collapse of the boundaries between web- and print-based technologies. Everyone can now be the creator and the publisher of their work across multiple platforms including the photobook as a printed ar tefact. Internationally there is huge interest in the lineage of the photobook and its future as one of the key artforms for creative photographers today. In response, photography programmes have renewed their focus on photography’s place as a critical tool that can influence and transform our social, political and cultural understandings of the world through digital and print-based publishing. The Photobook NZ Festival was held for the second time this year and co-hosted by Te Papa and Massey University, with director of photography David Cook, and Anne Noble leading Massey’s contribution. An exhibition, held in the Engine Room gallery at the College of Creative Arts, took the form of a live bookmaking performance by Japanese photographers Michiko Hayashi, Ryo Kusumoto, and Brisbane-based photographer Tammy Law – in association w i th Yumi G oto and the Reminder s Photography Stronghold, Tokyo. Photobook NZ was an ex traordinarily successful event, drawing together experts, amateur and professional photographers, gallerists, publishers and distributors from throughout Australia and New Zealand.
The Mermaid, Wormwood ( Artemisia sp.) Ann Shelton 2015 ongoing
From left to right: Distinguished Professor Anne Noble, Yumi Goto and Ryo Kusmoto (left) welcome Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy and her husband Sir David Gascoigne to the Photobook Festival at the Wellington campus with fellow phoptographers Tammy Law and Michiko Hayashi. Photo: David Cook
Photobook Festival 2018
Emerging Talent Creative Media Production
The recently established Creative Media Production degree is shaping the future of story-telling. The programme offers five pathways including film and television, animation and visual effects, game development, creative technologies (MR/AR/VR), and producing and directing. In 2017, the first cohort graduated and they are already out in the world making their mark.
Kate Lambert Kate started her working life at Pukeko Pictures. “I couldn’t believe my luck, I had thought Pukeko was something to aim for, not to start work there straight from university – the fact I got there for my first job just blew my mind,” says Kate. The interview was so quick she was sure she had blown it; part of the interview was a ‘spot the difference’ test, and as a big part of her job is continuity spotting, she now gets what it was about. She’s pleased her eye for detail, alongside the skills she learned during her degree, came to the fore. Kate is currently working as an assistant editor on “Thunderbirds”, the animated remake of an early television classic. She got hooked on animation in the first year and for the final year project she and others made a 3D animated short film called Tinker. “It was huge but we all learned so much – creating the whole film from the story, characters, animation and editing from end-to-end.” Now she works with two editors learning a huge amount, especially about the pipeline and processes you need to go through to create the show.
Emily French Emily says finding her first job wasn’t easy, as jobs aren’t waiting for you at the finish line, but she adds, “as soon as I stopped worrying about finishing the race, that’s when I started moving forward.” Emily started contract work in Wellington and is now working for GFC Films as a production assistant in Auckland. “My first year of university involved trying all different avenues of the degree which was helpful in guiding me towards animation. However, my interest in producing really grew over time without me even realising it. “This year I have worked on two projects, the first being an animated TV show that has me bound to secrecy until it’s released! Working as an Animation Supervisor I’d sit with the director and team on meetings about worldbuilding, character and story development. Essentially, I was a sponge for six months, which was a great introduction. My new job is in a similar position for a TV Drama adaptation of the Netflix film “The Deadlands.” “I’d been leaning towards a career in the arts, but didn’t know where to start; Massey showed me that if I worked hard, I could turn my hobby into a viable career."
Dylan Richardson Dylan loved games and animation, but he had also fallen in love with Wellington, so the Creative Media Production degree was the place he needed to be. “In my first year we studied games, animation (including modelling and rigging), film and sound design, and further down the line I even got to play with VR and motion capture. That has been really valuable when communicating across teams now” he says. Dylan started working at Pik Pok half way through his last semester, “In the beginning volunteering for playtesting sessions, and eventually applying for a Quality Assurance position that popped up. A few months later I jumped at an internal opportunity for a Junior Game Designer and now here I am. “My job means I get to work in a cross disciplinary team to produce a game at the end. I spend a lot of time balancing the “feel” of the gameplay and designing new content, then working alongside coders and artists to create and implement that content.” The advice he would give others is to celebrate the little things when you do get them right. If you wait to celebrate only the big successes, you’ll run out of gas a lot faster.
Josiah Watson Josiah conceptualised, directed and edited a beautiful cinematic documentary for his third year final project. The film, Inhabit, focused on New Zealand artists in their own landscapes, and was a collaboration with two other CMP students. He has only just been able to upload it onto Vimeo because since November 2017 it has been doing the rounds of international film festivals, and had its first showing in a Wellington cinema immediately after the graduation show, Exposure. No surprises then that he got a job straight from Massey, now working as a contractor to both Flying Saucer in Wellington as a director and at Sweet Shop in Auckland as a director’s assistant. The connection with Flying Saucer came through a faculty member knowing the authentic raw beauty of Inhabit suited the work being done by the agency. “I started University doing Photography, but when the CMP programme was introduced I moved across. Photography helped train my eye, find the tone, and my voice. It influenced how I make films now. “With Inhabit I loved working on the whole project from my concept to the finished product. We spent two weeks filming and the rest of the year in the editing suite.” Inhabit was largely filmed by CMP classmate Joshua Faisandier and art directed by Jeremy Hooper from the School of Design.
Thanks to all the staff, students and graduates of Massey University College of Creative Arts for their contributions to this publication.