The 2020 Physics Room Annual Fundraiser

The 2020 Physics Room Annual Fundraiser presents limited edition objects by three artists who have exhibited with us this year. With most artworks priced between $50 and $500, this is a rare opportunity to acquire work by these three contemporary artists at an affordable price, and to support The Physics Room’s exhibition programme in 2021. Any proceeds from this fundraiser will go directly towards funding artists in the production of new work.

Nina Oberg Humphries will present a range of artwork: jewellery, leis, photographs, and objects that reference the reimagined artefacts in her current exhibition TA’AI.

The Physics Room, through its upline sponsor Mark Schroder, has secured exclusive local rights to distribute VPLN’s range of lifestyle supplements. Packaged in durable ceramic vessels, VPLN products are available as single items or sets of three and come in a variety of sizes and colours. VPLN offers unique opportunities that can lead to higher levels of success and achievement. Tested and proven, VPLN is designed to maximise rewards for effort and provide substantial and ongoing income. You have the opportunity to control your future.

Five of Eddie Clemens’ Donuts which featured in Kiosk: Directors’ Commentary will be available for purchase. Great for summer water fun, each Donut comes with a ticket for a river cruise along the Ōtakaro Avon River on Saturday 5 December. Atop his custom-made stand-up paddleboard, Eddie will be your guide on a floating tour of public art in central Ōtautahi with complimentary Krispy Kreme donuts and Do-Bros. In addition to the five people who purchase Donuts, we are making another five river cruise tickets available via auction on the night of the fundraiser.

Alongside these works, a selection of our fundraising back catalogue will be available, including limited edition work by Ayesha Green, Matthew Galloway, Lonnie Hutchinson, Cushla Donaldson, and Judy Darragh.

We would like to thank Nina, Mark, Eddie, and all our previous fundraising artists for their generosity in supporting The Physics Room.

About The Physics Room

The Physics Room is a contemporary art space dedicated to developing and promoting contemporary art and critical discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Based in central Christchurch since 1996, we assist art practitioners with resources and opportunities to achieve a higher level of professional and creative development, and encourage a greater acknowledgement, understanding and value of contemporary art among New Zealanders. Our goal is to actively seek links between the arts and other areas of cultural production and to involve art as a contributing voice in wider intellectual, social and political debate.

The Physics Room is a charitable trust governed by a Board of Trustees. As an independent, non-profit organisation, we rely on an array of funding sources in order to support our activities. While our core funding comes from Creative New Zealand, we require additional financial support to be able to deliver an expansive exhibition programme, publications, public programme events and residency opportunities for artists.

About the artists:

Mark Schroder’s practice is focused on the creation of large-scale immersive amalgam environments and montage spaces that riff on corporate foyers, board rooms, waiting rooms, malls, storage facilities, motels, parking buildings, and locker rooms. Mark’s installations also utilise generic corporate structures and the opaque language of the banking and finance industries. Within these installations Mark presents sculptural elements, ceramics, video, sound, painted walls and motifs, and printed matter. Recent exhibitions have focused on a broad theme of aspiration and disappointment looking at the related elements of risk and reward, luck and chance, trust and scams and include Holding Co for Uncomfortable Silence (group show), Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (2020); GOLDKORP, RM Gallery and Project Space, Auckland (2019); It’s only a scratch, play_station, Wellington (2018); and New Gold Mountain, Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin (2018). Additionally, he is a member of the art collective Public Share and is also a member of the collective running RM Gallery, Auckland.

Mark Schroder’s exhibition SILVERCITY with The Physics Room in New Brighton ran from 15 February to 28 June.

Eddie Clemens’ practice takes place in the interstices between film, performance, and sculpture. He combines fabrication, prototyping, video editing, and photography to unlock unconventional, orthogonal avenues of investigation. Eddie’s works form an ongoing discussion around the idea that the artefacts of physical culture are carriers for narratives, links in an expansive and cryptic informational matrix that is indistinguishable from the everyday. Eddie has been the recipient of several commissions and residencies; he is currently working with Wellington Sculpture Trust on a permanent public sculpture Fibre-optic Colonnade Car Wash. He has also been the recipient of The Olivia Spencer Bower Residency, The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, and the Youkobo Artspace Tokyo Residency. Key exhibitions include First Edition, Third Hand, Bowerbank Ninow, Auckland (2019); Clone Cities, Te Tuhi Art Gallery, Auckland (201­6); AUCKLAND JEAN'S SHOP, Youkobo Artspace, Tokyo, Japan (2015).

Eddie Clemens’ exhibition Kiosk: Directors’ Commentary at The Physics Room ran from 11 July to 23 August 2020.

Christchurch born and bred, Nina Oberg Humphries (b.1990) is of Cook Islands and Pākehā descent. Nina graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Sculpture from Ilam School of Fine Arts in 2018. Her work explores her dual Pacific and Western heritage. Through the use of traditional Polynesian art forms such as Tivaevae, costume and dance, combined with elements of popular culture she seeks to convey issues of gender, identity, and social politics. In 2017 she worked with SCAPE Public Art and artists, performers, and practitioners to develop the community engaged work ‘ARE PASIFIKA, a five-week series of events, workshops, and activities highlighting Pacific arts and culture. She has also exhibited throughout Aotearoa including Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki, Christchurch; St Paul St Gallery, Auckland; and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Wellington.

Nina Oberg Humphries’ exhibition TA’AI at The Physics Room ran from 17 October to 29 November 2020.

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