Julieanna Preston, restless manoeuvers [durational live art performance]. Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand as part of Performance Art Week Aotearoa 1-5 November 2023.
restless manoeuvers was a live performance that shaped a durational relationship between building, books, colour and body. It wonders spatially and materially about the current political and cultural state of being Pākehā in Aotearoa today.
Adam Art Gallery, a prestigious gallery in Wellington, is part of an English institution, Queen Victoria’s university, a colonising edifice. The Adam was built on top of a stairwell that followed the topography of a former mountain stream. Sound wafts well amongst the hard, powdery grey planes of its voluminous interior spaces.
A basket of books and large swatches of fabric wait at the doorway. The books, all recent Bridget Williams Books publications, are tabbed, dog-eared and marked, a signal of the readings yet to come. Each book considers a specific aspect of the cultural and political climate. The fabric poses as a dynamic colour field, a painterly as well as sculptural interpretative gesture. I perform them in search of the gestures that will un-write, un-sign, un-speak, and unsettle colonial hubris.
In stark contrast to the architecture, my ample body alerts me to how white and unfit I am, will always be, unless I do the hard work. My improvisations are guided by the texts, what they say, how they sound in the context of the gallery, and how they pry at my subconscious, or appease, argue, or unsettle the stubborn vestiges of my privilege.
https://www.performanceartweekaotearoa.com/
Image credits: Chora Carleton, Bikka Ora and Robyn Jordaan
