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2011 » New Zealand » Architecture Section
| Curator: | Amanda Yates |
| Designer / Architect of exhibition: | Amanda Yates |
| Institution: | Massey University |
Performing Space in Oceania
In the Pacific, architecture is performative and responsive to the event while performance space is practised as a social field of interaction. Permeable or transient Oceanic architecture such as the fale (house), whare tapere (entertainment house) or hakari (feast stage) and enduring landscape constructions like the raised marae (meeting ground) perform temporal flow, enacting the passage of time through their ephemerality or endurance while enabling flows of people, weather, sounds and events. These open or multi-use structures become performance spaces when used as sites of discursive exchange: theatre architecture in the Pacific then is formed as and through such social acts as meeting, feasting and the rituals of encounter. New Zealand’s Architecture Section exhibition presents work by New Zealand architects or designers working in theatre architecture, performance and event design fields. Influenced by our situation on the periphery of Oceania these projects (built or unbuilt, performed or proposed) explore how to make performative architectures or practice performance space in the Pacific. Architecture for performance is framed here as an expansive condition that extends from the black box theatre to the social and performative space of the table, from a site-specific event to the meeting place of the marae.
Designer of Exposition: Amanda Yates Exhibitor 1: Charles Royal and Bruce Graham for “Whare Tapere” Exhibitor 2: Stephen Bain for “Luminoceros” Exhibitor 3: Creative Spaces with Dorita Hannah for “Mangere Arts Centre” & “Telstra Clear Pacific Arts Events Centre” Exhibitor 4: Athfield Architects with Dorita Hannah for “Porirua Performing Arts Centre” Exhibitor 5: Warren and Mahoney with Dorita Hannah for “Waikato Performing Arts Centre”