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SPARK 05 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
| Chimene Del La Varis |
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| Chimene del la Varis was born in Surrey, England
in 1963. She lives in Hamilton and has two sons of Tainui descent
(Ngati Mahuta/Ngati Whawhakia). In June 2004 she graduated from
Wintec with a National Diploma of Journalism and has spent the past
year working at the Waikato Times as Maori Affairs reporter, specializing
in the coverage of Tainui tribal issues. Most recently, Chimene
has written features for the Waikato Times retrospective on the
10th anniversary of the signing of the tribe’s $170 million
raupatu settlement. Chimene holds a Bachelor of Arts in Italian
and Spanish (Auckland, 1988) and a Diploma of Drama (Auckland, 1995).
She has recently been invited to join Radio New Zealand’s
Auckland newsroom as Maori Issues reporter. |
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| Chris Chetland |
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| Chris “Baitercell” Chetland
is label boss for indie imprint KOG which have spurned such talent
as Concord Dawn and paved the way for other dance independents in
NZ. Since the days of the Amiga 500 computer, Chris has been writing
dance music with a heavy breakbeat influence. For the last 9 years
he has been honing his craft and developing his widely respected mastering
ears which have given birth to the slickest, loudest and most bass-heavy
productions to come out of NZ. Chris has worked on or with almost
all of Aotearoa’s premiere rock, hip hop and dance acts, such
as The D4, Gramsci, Shapeshifter, P Money, Scribe, Pacific Heights,
Chong Nee and the list goes on and on…. |
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| Daniel Malone |
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| Daniel Malone has degrees in Art History and
Fine Arts from Auckland University and over the past ten years he
has exhibited and travelled in various places including Australia,
Asia, Europe, Central America and the United States of America. Daniel
works in any media including performance, sculpture, writing, sound,
video, collage and installation. During 2002 he spent six months in
Beijing studying Mandarin. Daniel’s father was born of Cherokee
descent. |
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| Dave Baxter (graduate) |
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| Dave Baxter originally started
work at Kog on an internship from Wintec [where he won the composition
award in 2004]. His abilities and super relaxed manner made him an
obvious choice to first work as an assistant and he quickly showed
that he could hold his own at a really high level. He is part of the
newly developed beat farm project with Chris Chetland and Chong Nee. |
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| Deborah Challinor |
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| Waikato writer and historian Deborah Challinor's
first book, Grey Ghosts (1998), was based on her Ph.D thesis on
New Zealand Vietnam veterans. Who'll Stop the Rain? followed in
2000, plus a short regional history, Pictures from the Past: Waikato.
Tamar, Deborah's first novel, was also published in 2000, followed
by the sequel White Feathers (2003) and Blue Smoke (2004), all bestsellers.
Her latest novel Union Belle, based on the Waikato miners' strike
in 1951, was at number one for several months this year. Deborah
has also lectured at Waikato University (NZ Wars), and written for
the Waikato Times as a columnist and a feature writer. She has just
completed a novel set in Paihia in 1840, is now working on a fictionalised
account of the 1947 Ballantyne's fire, and preparing to write a
history of Huntly. |
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| Eugene Hansen |
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| Ngati Mahuta, Ngati Maniapoto, Tainui. Eugene is
a lecturer at Massey University, School of Fine Arts, Wellington.
He is also a co-director of SHOW, an artist-run project space in
central Wellington. Eugene employs a variety of media and strategies
including pop object sculpture, live video and audio performance,
and high-end digital print technology. These strategies are normally
deployed concurrently as elements of multimedia installation. Primarily
Eugene’s work is concerned with the relationships established
between contemporary cultural production and the current post-colonial
condition of Aotearoa. His work often explores how contemporary
cultural production is made collaboratively. He gained a Master
of Fine Art Degree, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology 1998
and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, 1992. |
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| Heather Galbraith |
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| Heather Galbraith is the newly appointed Senior
Curator at City Gallery Wellington. Prior to this she was the inaugural
Director of St. Paul St. at AUT. Heather returned to New Zealand in
2004 following twelve years in the UK. In 1996-97 she undertook an
MA in Contemporary Visual Arts Curation at Goldsmiths’ College,
and then worked for seven years as Exhibitions Organiser at London’s
Camden Arts Centre. Projects there included exhibitions, artist’s
residencies, off-site events and publications by Sophie Calle, Marlene
Dumas, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Simon Starling, Doris Salcedo, Simon
Periton, Lois Weinberger, Christopher Wool, Cerith Wyn Evans, Len
Lye, and Francis Upritchard. Prior to this she worked for The Landscape
Foundation, which situates itself in the fertile territory between
architecture, landscape architecture, visual art practice and geography.
Heather graduated with a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland
University in 1991. |
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| Jay Wahid |
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| Jairsino (Jay) Wahid is the Business Manager
for Mai Music and Mai Publishing. |
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| James Lynch |
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| James Lynch was born and grew up in Reservoir a
1950’s northern suburb of Melbourne. He never really
knew what he wanted to do but studied fine art painting at the Victorian
College of the Arts where he now sometimes teaches. He works
across various media including drawing, installation, painting and
animation. He is a member of the collaborative group Damp,
rubik (a curatorial and publishing project), TCB gallery and is
a contributing editor of Natural Selection (www.naturalselection.org.nz). His
early work frequently used painted and hand-drawn trompe l’oeil
effects to emphasize the constructed nature of our everyday lives
and fantasies. Most recently he has created a series of artworks
and animations based on a real collection of people’s dreams
in which he has appeared. His work mediates our often conflicted
and ambivalent relationships with the other. His work is held
in private collections in Belgium, Italy, Los Angeles, Mexico, Netherlands,
Paris, Sweden and Australia. He is represented by Uplands
Gallery Melbourne, Mori Gallery Sydney and Galerie Frank Paris. |
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| Jenny Gillam |
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| Jenny is a lecturer at Massey University, School
of Fine Arts, Wellington. She is also a co-director of SHOW, an
artist-run project space in central Wellington. Jenny is an exhibiting
artist using photographic and digital means to explore perceptions
and expectations about reality. She employs strategies of collecting,
collating, editing and re-presenting existing bodies of imagery.
She is interested in how found images are as much about their subject
matter as the intentions of the original image maker (or what we
imagine those intentions to be). Employing digital technology as
her primary means of production, Jenny’s installations are
a reflection on the complex relationships people hold with their
environment. She gained a Master of Fine Art Degree, Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology 1999 and a Diploma of Photography, Carrington
Polytechnic, 1993. |
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| Joshua Davis |
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| Joshua Davis is a New York based artist, designer,
and technologist producing both public and private work for companies,
collectors, and institutions. Using technology and computers
as a medium since 1995, he has exhibited interactive works at the
Tate Modern (London), the Ars Electronica (Austria), the Design
Museum (London), le Centre Pompidou (France), the Institute of Contemporary
Arts (London), PS.1 Moma (New York), and many others. His
site, praystation, was the winner of the 2001 Prix Ars
Electronica Golden Nica in the category “Net Excellence,” the
highest honor in international net art and design. He is a
professional designer and creative thinker, and spreads his time
among working with clients, travelling the world speaking at conferences
and workshops about his inspirations and motivations, building his
own creative projects, and teaching as a professor at the School
of Visual Arts in New York City. For further information,
check out his website: www.joshuadavis.com |
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| Lara Bowen
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| Lara Bowen has a diverse background as a Producer
for multimedia, events, visual arts and film. After studying Fine
Arts and a BA at the University of Canterbury, Lara was appointed
Director of Artspace in 1993. She then went on to work in film and
event production before her appointment as a Senior Producer at Terabyte
Interactive, where she led the production team. After a brief stint
at McCann Ericsson in the UK, Lara was appointed as Executive Producer
for the Interactive department of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand
bringing her to Wellington. Lara has played a key role in work for
clients such as The Retirement Commission's ‘sorted’ website,
New Zealand's Army recruitment programmes online and many other clients
including Telecom, Westpac and New Zealand Dairy Foods. Lara is currently
the Account Director for Toyota New Zealand, based in the Auckland
Saatchi office. |
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| Leah King-Smith
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| In the early 1990’s Leah King-Smith’s work was brought
to international prominence with the exhibition of a series of ten
large-scale photographs titled Patterns of Connection. Leah will
present an overview of her practice, includeing Patterns of Connection
(1992), Beyond Capture (2004) and Liminal Interstices (2005). The
discussion will cover issues of identity, history, psychology, temporality
and multidimensionality that are evidenced in the analogue, digital,
still and time-based aspects of her work. Leah King-Smith has a
black Aboriginal mother and a white Australian father, and whilst
she feels her Aboriginality is a large contributing factor to her
creative motivation, her cultural blend has fostered human principles
of resolution and mediation. Leah King-Smith has a Bachelor and
a Masters degree in fine art photography and currently is a doctoral
candidate at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. |
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| Leigh Van Der Stoep
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| Leigh van der Stoep was born in Pretoria, South
Africa where she lived and studied to the age of 20. In 2002 she
enrolled in a Bachelor of Technology in Journalism at the Technikon
of Pretoria but relocated to New Zealand at the end of 2003 before
she could complete her degree. Living in Auckland with her
family, she completed a diploma in Travel Writing and Photography
through the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies. Shortly after
completing this diploma she enrolled in the National Diploma of
Journalism at the Waikato Institute of Technology - a course which
she completed in June 2005. While completing her studies,
she held a part-time position with Go Auto Magazine in Auckland
as a writer and photographer. As part of her work experience, she
worked on the Waikato Times, the NZ Herald and briefly on the Taupo
Times. Named top student in her 2004/2005 National Diploma
class, she now holds a full-time position with the North Shore Times
in Auckland as a reporter. |
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| Michael Redman
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| Details Pending. |
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| Nadine Christensen
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| Over the last ten years artist Nadine Christensen
has been key figure in the Melbourne artistic community. She is
a founding member of the highly influential Clubsproject and held
major exhibitions last year at ACCA Melbourne and CCAS Canberra
. She exhibits regularly at Kaliman Gallery Sydney and Uplands Melbourne
and has been closely involved with numerous artist run spaces such
as 1st Floor, Lovers and Stripp amongst others. Her work uses painting,
drawing, furnishings, outdated crafts and technologies to reflect
upon the structures of perception and comprehension. Through
a subtle play of genre and sustained observations new frontiers
and narratives are made possible.
http://www.clubsproject.org.au and http://www.kalimangallery.com |
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| Onedotzero
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| onedotzero is a visionary UK-based hybrid events
and production company operating in the domain of digital moving
image. The vital force and driving impulse of onedotzero, wow +
flutter is the pioneering home for new creative expression exploring
motion graphics, animations, enhanced digital and short experimental
works. wow + flutter presents a compilation programme of graphic
fuelled work from innovators in the fields of animation, graphics
and abstract experimentation. This compilation charts and reports
the development of desktop graphic filmmaking, across a wide range
of disciplines spanning architecture, fashion, illustration, graphic
design, music and beyond. It showcases new creatives to acclaimed
industry talent, with the works continuing to present new approaches
to graphic storytelling and future visual trends in motion. 80 minutes
screening. Please visit onedotzero here: http://www.onedotzero.com |
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| Paul Carter
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| In Material Thinking author/artist Paul Carter
describes how ideas are turned into creative works and how, in turn,
these ‘local inventions’ contribute to general knowledge.
He finds the difference of creative research in the attention it pays
to acts of local invention, and discusses the role ‘strong collaboration’ can
play in reposing questions of social purpose and historical identity
bound up with becoming at that place. Paul re-presents and illustrates
these ideas and invites discussion. Paul is the author of many books,
including Repressed Spaces (2003), The Lie of the Land (1996) and
The Road to Botany Bay (1987). His public artwork Nearamnew (a collaboration
with Lab architecture studio) is throughout the plaza of Federation
Square, Melbourne. |
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| Rachael Lennard
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| Rachael Lennard, 24, is chief sub-editor at the
Daily Post newspaper in Rotorua. After graduating from Wintec, doing
a stint as a reporter with the South Waikato News in Tokoroa, and
running a commercial website for the Outdoorsman Headquarters in
Rotorua, Rachael moved to a subbing position with the Post. Singled
out early on as a rising star with APN, she quickly took on extra
responsibilities, and took charge of the subs bench after just 18
months in the job. As chief sub Rachael runs the subs bench, overseeing
production of the news, sport and feature sections. With a keen
interest in design matters, Rachael controls the layout of the pages
while also managing the copy tasting and copy editing processes.
Rachael is heavily involved in the ongoing development and improvements
to the newspaper. |
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| Rebecca Cannon
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Rebecca Cannon is an Australian new media artist,
curator and producer. Her award-winning videos and animations have
screened at major festivals worldwide, including Transmediale. Her
current creative projects include the research and development of
an interactive animation that realistically responds to the presence
of viewers. She curates selectparks.net, an online archive of artistic
computer game modifications, and is curating the upcoming exhibition
Cult Classic – the major visual arts component of the 2004
Next Wave Festival. She is also producing the DVD compilation Neopoetry
which brings together young Australian writers with media artists. Rebecca
says: “In my spare time I write about artists making games.
I also curate many-media exhibitions, produce video compilations,
research opensource CMS' and produce my own machinima and other
digital media artworks. For professional work I am a User
Interface Architect for applications being deployed to wired and
wireless technologies. Projects which I would like people to contribute
to can be found at http://pandatv.net.” |
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| Rob Garrett |
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| Rob Garrett is a senior manager with Creative
New Zealand, and heads a team which administers project funding, provides
art form advice and works with the arts sector to identify development
needs, opportunities and strategies. During 2004-05 he is Sponsoring
Manager for New Zealand’s participation in the Venice Biennale
2005 working alongside Commissioner Greg Burke in leading the Biennale
project, the fundamental practice. He was formerly a Government-appointed
member of the Arts Council’s governing body; Head of the Dunedin
School of Art; and founder of the School’s contemporary art
theory programme. Garrett was foundation Chairman of the Otago Festival
of the Arts Trust; and foundation trustee on the Higher Trust in Dunedin.
He is an artist and art writer and has degrees in Fine Arts (Auckland)
and Art History (Otago) and a background in education, arts advocacy
and arts management. |
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| Rosemary Mcleod |
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Satirist and cartoonist Rosemary McLeod was a regular
contributor to the Listener magazine in the 1970s and was responsible
for some of the best cartoons of the period. She now writes a column
for the Sunday Star Times, and has recently written the book “Thrift
to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s-1950s”. Initially,
McLeod's interest grew from a personal attachment to a number of
objects: shoe bags, tea-trolley cloths and crocheted blankets made
by the women in her family. These she inherited or more often rescued.
To these pieces, she has added works by other anonymous Kiwi women
from her mother and grandmother's generation, purchased from church
shops. In 2002, part of McLeod's collection was exhibited at the
ever-innovative Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, under the name "Thrift
to Fantasy". |
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| Sally Morgan |
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Sally J Morgan is a performance and installation artist now settled
in Wellington. She has exhibited and performed internationally,
and has had pieces selected to represent British performance art
at the ICA in London and the International Live Art Festival in
Fribourg, Switzerland. Her A Life in Diagrams series was described
by critics as ‘exquisitely articulated,’ and the Arts
Council of Great Britain considered that it represented some of
the ‘best of current British Performance Art practice’.
She also studied at postgraduate at level Ruskin College Oxford
under the influential social historian Raphael Samuel, and has published
widely on art theory and cultural history. She has been Professor
of Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington Campus, since 2001,
and is now Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Creative Arts.. |
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| Shuchi Kothari |
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Shuchi Kothari is a screenplay writer who
works in the film industries in New Zealand, USA, and India.
Shuchi's first feature screenplay Portside Out, won her the James
Michener Post graduate Fellowship in Writing at the University of
Texas at Austin. In Texas she was also commissioned to write Paperweight,
an adaption of Bert Kruger Smith's novel An Odyssey of Grief, and
later, Naked Rain, for Wadia Movietone, (New York/Mumbai). Her feature
screenplay Apron Strings (co-written with Dianne Taylor) was awarded
the Bright Ideas Grant from the New Zealand Film Commission. She also
wrote and presented the broadcast documentary A Taste of Place: Stories
of Food and Longing for Television New Zealand. Shuchi came
to New Zealand to teach in the Department of Film, Television, and
Media Studies at the University of Auckland where she is currently
a senior lecturer. |
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| Stewart Harris |
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Stewart Harris is an established and award-winning
New Zealand
interior designer specialising in hotel design. He also designs
interiors for residential, commercial, hospitality, marine, and theatres.
Stewart works for Martin Hughes Architecture Interiors, a 32 year
old
design practice in Auckland, where he has worked on design projects
in New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Rarotonga, Dubai. He was previously
the corporate designer for Hilton International Hotel group, based
in
the UK. Stewart is involved in all aspects of design: conceptual,
documentation, procurement, specification writing, styling,
landscaping, and graphics. Recipient of the Designers Institute of
New Zealand premier award, and the 2000 Stringer award for
Metropolis Hotel in Auckland, his recent projects also include the
Pricewaterhouse Coopers Lobby, Auckland and The Spire Boutique
Hotel, Queenstown. |
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| Tim Walker |
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Tim is The Director, Museums in Hutt City. This involves oversight
of the City’s 2 museums – The Dowse and The Petone Settlers
Museum. He has been the Director of The Dowse since 1998. In that
time The Dowse has developed innovative projects looking at creativity
across a range of media and sectors - including hip hop, the role
of design in transforming the value of New Zealand manufacturing,
mental health initiatives and the decorative arts and design. During
2004-05 he was invited to speak to national museum conferences in
the USA, Australia and New Zealand about the award-winning creative
business model adopted by The Dowse. Previously Tim worked as Curator
(Fine Arts) at the Waikato Museum of Art and History in Hamilton
and was Senior Art Curator at The National Art Gallery/Te Papa for
10 years. He has a BA and MA in Art History from the University
of Auckland. |
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| Victor Stent |
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| Victor Stent is General Manager of Mai Music
which is a subsidiary of Ngati Whatua owned Mai Media Limited. 'The
kaupapa of Mai Music is the discovery, nurturing and development of
local talent' says Stent. He has successfully produced albums by Katchafire,
The Dubios Bros, Maori singer/song writer Whirimako Black and many
more. Victor previously spent 5 years as Managing Director of Polygram
NZ and 5 years as Operations & Marketing Director for Virgin Retail
Asia/Pacific. |
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| Wayne Barrar |
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Wayne Barrar is the Director of Photography at Massey University
School of Fine Arts in Wellington. His extended photographic projects
have been exhibited in New Zealand as well as the US, Norway and
Canada. Most recently his work has been included in Prospect 2004,
Wellington City Gallery and Toi TePapa, Art of the Nation at Te
Papa, Museum of New Zealand. He has been awarded a number of international
artist residencies and grants. A survey book of his work, Shifting
Nature, was published by the University of Otago Press in 2001.
At Spark 05, he will be discussing the evolution of his various
projects leading to his current investigation of the commodification
and adaptation of underground space. |
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