Workshop

Out of Bounds

Queer knitting with Kat Aucamp

Saturday 13 July, 11AM

“There are no walls or fences. My garden’s boundaries are the horizon.” – Derek Jarman, Modern Nature (1989).

In the desolate, hostile landscape of Dungeness, Jarman created an unconventional, uneven and random paradise with his garden at Prospect Cottage. Here he gardened without convention or constraint, finding therapeutic comfort and peace.

Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Kat Aucamp shares a kindred approach in their knitwear design practice. Knitting without patterns or rigid frameworks, Aucamp champions learning through doing and experimenting, rejecting stuffiness and conformity.

This workshop will demystify knitting as a craft, offering a starting point for queer people wanting to design and make their own original clothing. Aucamp will breakdown the process of knitting a garment from start to finish, using an item of clothing that you already own as a framework. There will also be a focus on how to knit cheaply by sourcing from opshops.

The workshop is open to anyone from the rainbow and takatāpui communities of any age. No knitting or design experience is required. Experienced knitters are also welcome to attend and learn an alternative approach!

Workshop

abstract painting for kids

Saturday 6 July

Jump-start the school holidays by bringing your whānau to Gus Fisher Gallery for an introductory abstract painting workshop. In collaboration with Māpura Studios, tutor Tim Danko will encourage tamariki to explore the medium of paint, taking inspiration from the tactile and textural impasto paintings of Derek Jarman.

10.30-11.30am: Suitable for ages 5-8

1.30-2.30pm: Suitable for ages 9-12

Film screening

BLUE

in partnership with The Capitol Cinema

Sunday 23 June, 6.20PM

Sometime in 1992, during a trip to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, the filmmaker, writer and painter Derek Jarman was told his eyesight was fading.

‘Fizzy holes’ had appeared in his vision: the result of an AIDS-related complication that would, by the end of the year, leave him blind in one eye. In this growing darkness, to his surprise, he started seeing flashes of bright Yves Klein blue. This had always been his favourite colour – the blue of his boiler suits, or the skies over the Dungeness coast – and, during the last months of his life, it inspired his final, most personal film.

In Blue (1993), he wrote straightforwardly about his body and the illnesses besieging it: the night sweats, aching glands, headaches and ‘scrambled reflexes’.

Narrated by John Quentin, Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry and Jarman, the text is an unflinching account of his fear, uncertainty and courage in the face of impending death. By pairing it with a single shot of blue, luminescent and unchanging throughout its 79-minute running time, viewers experience for themselves the terror of Jarman’s diminishing eye-sight, but also the freedom of transcending it: he wonders, at one moment, what lies beyond the sky.

Runtime: 77 minutes

Film screening

THE GARDEN

in partnership with The Capitol Cinema

Sunday 23 June, 4.20PM

Half waking dream and half fiery polemic, The Garden (1990) was born of director Jarman’s rage over continued anti-gay discrimination and the sluggardly response to the AIDS crisis—he had been diagnosed HIV positive in 1986.

Starring Tilda Swinton, this uniquely kaleidoscopic film shows the filmmaker’s genius at its most coruscating, making space in its breadth of vision for an over-the-top Hollywood-style musical number, nightmare images of tar-and-feather queer persecution, and footage of the particularly menacing-looking nuclear power plant that overlooks Jarman’s own garden, the point from which his film begins, and a cherished spot which he must keep to tending even as his body begins to betray him.

Writhing with sorrow and anger, and yet so vividly alive to the loveliness of being, The Garden is a baleful and beautiful epistle from the brink of the beyond

Runtime: 92 minutes

Film screening

WITTGENSTEIN

in partnership with The Capitol Cinema

Sunday 23 June, 2.40PM

Wittgenstein (1993) is a humorous portrait of one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers. This self-tortured eccentric, who preferred detective fiction and the musicals of Carmen Miranda to Aristotle, is a fitting subject for Jarman’s irreverent imagination.

A visually stunning and profoundly entertaining work about modern philosophy and the dark genius that revolutionized it.

Runtime: 72 minutes

Film screening

THE ANGELIC CONVERSATION

in partnership with The Capitol Cinema

Saturday 22 June, 6PM

Reminiscent of Jarman’s music videos for The Smiths or The Pet Shop Boys; comparable to earlier work by the likes of Jean Genet or Kenneth Anger. Like being submerged into someone’s private fantasies.

Intense, dreamlike, and, poetic, The Angelic Conversation (1985) is one of the most artistic of Jarman’s films. With a painter’s eye Jarman conjures an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems narrated by Judi Dench, charting the relationship between two men, in a beautiful palette of light, colour and texture.

Jarman called it, “My most austere work, but also the closest to my heart.”

Runtime: 78 minutes

Film screening

Caravaggio

in partnership with The Capitol Cinema

Saturday 22 June, 4PM

Derek Jarman’s most profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. Caravaggio (1986) incorporates the painter’s precise aesthetic into the movie’s own visuals, while touching on all of Jarman’s major concerns: history, homosexuality, violence and the relationship between painting and film.

Runtime: 93 minutes

Tour

Co-curator tour

Saturday 15 June, 2PM

Join exhibition co-curators Lisa Beauchamp, Curator of Contemporary Art at Gus Fisher Gallery, Aaron Lister, Senior Curator (Toi) at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and Michael Lett for a guided tour through Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days.

Performance

Celluloid Reverie

Saturday 15 June, 1.45PM

Celluloid Reverie is a contemporary dance performance inspired by the life and practice of Derek Jarman. It has been created in response to Jarman’s film My Very Beautiful Movie (1974), also on display in the exhibition. Choreographed by Kelly Nash and performed by Caleb Heke and Oli Mathiesen, Celluloid Reverie is an interconnected, responsive dance performance that traverses between two performers, the film’s sound and scenery, and the presence of the artist.

View documentation here.

Exhibition opening

Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days

Friday 14 June, 5PM

Join us for the exhibition opening of Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days at Gus Fisher Gallery. Celebrate the first Aotearoa New Zealand exhibition of artist and activist Derek Jarman (1942-1994).

This exhibition has been co-developed by Gus Fisher Gallery and City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. The exhibition is co-curated by Lisa Beauchamp, Curator of Contemporary Art at Gus Fisher Gallery, Aaron Lister, Senior Curator (Toi) at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and Michael Lett.

Film screening

Past Lives

Saturday 11 May, 2PM

Two childhood friends are separated after one’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one week as they confront notions of destiny, love and the choices that make a life.

Join us for a film screening of Celine Song’s 2023 film Past Lives to celebrate the final day of the exhibition.

Publication launch

un/luck panel & publication

Saturday 4 May, 2PM

What is luck?

This publication collects a series of responses to this question from a group of artists connected with the Doctoral programmes at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and The Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki, who together consider luck and its connotations from a wide variety of artistic positions across cultures, geographies, and artistic practices, asking how aspects of chance, unpredictability, agency and control intersect with place, privilege, history and language.

Conceived as a parallel venue to the exhibition, un/luck explores the potential for publishing as a means of exchange. Produced on a risograph, the publication experiments with an iterative approach, unfolding over the duration of the project. First presented at the Kuva Research Days in December 2023, this next edition features contributions from: Roma Anderson, Katrina Beekhuis, Matthew Cowan, Paul Cullen, Miklos Gaál, Matthew Galloway, Ngahuia Harrison, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Sean Kerr, Yukari Kaihori, Louise Menzies, Ilya Orlov, Peter Robinson, Mirimari Väyrynen and Denise Ziegler.

To celebrate the launch, we are hosting a panel discussion with artists Henna Riikka Halonen, Miklos Gaál and Mirimari Väyrynen, moderated by our Exhibitions Manager Nina Dyer. ⁠

Workshop

Experimental film photography

Saturday 27 April, 11AM

Embrace the element of chance in this film photography workshop with contemporary artist Kate van der Drift. Over this 3-hour workshop, you will learn stylistic and technical skills in 35mm film camera technologies, including exposure, shutter and other key camera functions. Kate will explore how artists employ analogue techniques to inform their practices, encouraging participants to consider the creative potential and magic of working with film by trying experimental technical approaches, working towards unknown outcomes.

Workshop

Spontaneous Sculpture

Saturday 20 April, 2.30PM

Join us for a contemporary sculpture workshop led by Katrina Beekhuis and Ambrose O’Meagher, who will guide in the creation of temporary sculptures and installations developed through conversation, collaboration, and chance. Through close engagement with the surrounding environment, salvaging materials and re-purposing everyday objects, you’ll be encouraged to employ the power of luck and chance in the art-making process. This workshop embraces the potential of daily moments to expand awareness and spur thought.

Workshop

Omamori charms for kids

Saturday 30 March, 10.30AM

Omamori are Japanese charms that are believed to provide good luck and protection to the wearer. Come along to this whānau-friendly workshop to make your own paper omamori charms and bring luck into your life.

Artist talk

In Conversation

Saturday 16 March, 2PM

Join exhibiting artists Katrina Beekhuis, Matthew Cowan, Sean Kerr and Yukari Kaihori for a floor talk to celebrate the opening weekend of Eight thousand layers of moments. The artists will discuss their respective works and contributions to the collaborative exhibition.

Exhibition opening

Eight thousand layers of moments

Thursday 14 March, 5PM

Celebrate the opening of our new exhibition Eight thousand layers of moments, which examines the understanding of luck and the form it has taken across history, culture and language. This exhibition is a collaboration between Doctoral students and alumni from the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts in Helsinki, and Elam School of Fine Arts at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland.

Workshop

Yoga Vinyasa Flow

with Radiqal Movement

Saturday 24 February, 10.30AM

Radiqal Movement’s Vinyasa classes cultivate balance and establish steadiness. Flow through a thoughtfully curated sequence linking breath and movement, allowing the mind and body to find a moving meditation. Scarlett will lead you through a juicy Vinyasa flow, introducing core Āsana (yoga poses) that are accessible and adaptable. Scar takes special care in tailoring the practice to individual needs, offering a range of modified movements and stretches to cater to all fitness levels, experiences, and confidence. Whether you’re new to yoga or an experienced practitioner, you’ll find a space where you can challenge yourself at your own pace. This class encourages a holistic and inclusive approach to yoga.

Radiqal Movement are a queer-affirming, body-liberating, “fitness” organisation formed in November of 2021. They are one of the first and only organisations in Aotearoa to offer gender-affirming, joyful exercise experiences tailored to our LGBTQ+ whānau. This event is part of the 2024 Auckland Pride Festival. See the full programme at aucklandpride.org.nz

Workshop

Moving Encounters & Expressive Visual Arts-Making

Saturday 10 February, 2PM

Moving Encounters is a blissful mindful movement practice which guides you to connect to your charged presence and creativity. Each mover is guided to explore expressivity through embodied interaction and visual arts-making. Sessions progress from partner work to free-style expression with varying degrees of contact – from fingertips to full-body, from skin-to-skin intimacy to encounters that stretch across the gallery space. The workshop helps bring peace to the mind and body through release and connections to others. Moving Encounters is an embodied process to unlock creative flow.

Facilitated by Daneil Cunningham. This event is part of the 2024 Auckland Pride Festival. See the full programme at aucklandpride.org.nz.

Tour

Curator tour

with coffee + donuts

Saturday 20 January, 2PM

Join Gus Fisher Gallery curator Lisa Beauchamp for a guided tour of Outcast: Jasmine Togo-Brisby and John Vea where she will discuss existing and newly commissioned works by the exhibiting artists. Enjoy the talk with complimentary donuts and Kōkako coffee.