Pause, act, void, event

Here, “life” takes on many meanings. It could gesture to the unstable and surprising nature of materials, which—despite the best efforts of the institution to halt decay—act in ways that exceed human intention, and inevitably change over time. It could speak to the ways artists transform earthly matter to come to terms with, reclaim, and regenerate ways of seeing, feeling, knowing and being in the world. Life, or liveness, may also signal the aspirations artists hold for artworks to act in service of transformation—to play an active role within the world, or in struggles against injustice.

Thinking of artworks as living invites us to consider works less as stable, individual objects, than as ever-expanding, ever-developing webs of relationships. These webs enfold the teachers, mentors, friends, comrades, and whānau held dear by the artist, as well as the audiences who encounter and find meaning within them.

Central to this exhibition is the presentation and reimagining of an installation by Debra Bustin. First realised in 1982, and here extended far beyond its original form, the work is a key example of Bustin’s complex, joyous, room-spanning environments. Seeking to “explode” painting out of the confines of a two-dimensional surface, Bustin has described her works as “portals into possible worlds that are in the ongoing process of creation.”

The title of this exhibition is drawn from Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “Telling is Listening”. In her text, Le Guin argues for an understanding of communication and storytelling that is intersubjective, based on mutual investment, attunement and openness to transformation. Describing all living beings—from amoeba to many-celled organisms—as oscillators, for Le sGuin, the process of living amounts to “keeping time” with the biological systems within us, and the environments arounds us. The ability to seek out and find meaning within these vibrational patterns, or “the rhythmic alternation of void and event—pause and act—silence and word”,  forms the basis of shared communication between beings, enabling relationships to flourish, and life to endure.