TOI TANGATA | ARTS UPDATE
13 March 2020
News
UC Arts at the Arts Centre
Are you, or do you know, a UC student keen for CCR credits? Take a look at the link here and get involved in Arts Centre events for the Teece, Music & Classics.
School of Music
On Monday night, we were delighted to host Dunedin composer/sound artist Kerian Varaine for New Music Central. There was a great audience who enjoyed experiencing a range of modalities, including an alpha test of an interactive piece currently in production!
On Tuesday night, we were lucky to have a visit from Susan West and Sally Bodkin-Allen, who presented a talk on ‘An alternative altruistic approach to singing for everyone’ in the Camerata Room.
Next week, Head of Performance, Mark Menzies curates a violin and viola mini-fest! 'Vln&Vla' will run from Wed 18 - Sun 21 March, and will feature a series of strings performances from students, staff, and guests. Check out the dates below.
Upcoming events: • Friday Lunchtime Concert – Friday 13 March, 1.10pm: Shostakovich (& others) – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
• Vln&Vla: a mini-fest of violin & viola performances – Wed 18 March, 7.00pm: Mark Menzies & Tim Emerson – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
• Vln&Vla: a mini-fest of violin & viola performances – Fri 20 March, 1.10pm: Lunchtime concert – The pull of Autumn strings – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
• Vln&Vla: a mini-fest of violin & viola performances – Sat 21 March, 2.00pm: Bach’s birthday! With Tomas Hurnik – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
• Vln&Vla: a mini-fest of violin & viola performances – Sat 21 March, 5.00pm: Bach’s birthday! With Tomas Hurnik – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
• Vln&Vla: a mini-fest of violin & viola performances – Sun 22 March, 5.00pm: Nathaniel Otley, Jeffrey Zhap & guests – Venue: Recital Room, UC Arts City Location
Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities
Following on from International Women's Day last weekend, it's great to see an initiative which aims to increase knowledge about the contribution of women to ancient world studies.
It seems very appropriate that the new blog by Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies features UC graduate (and Teece Gallery Host!) Natalie Looyer discussing her research into the life of Miss Marion Steven. You can read about it here!
Upcoming events: • Holding Fast: conservation of the Logie Collection – Thursday 19 March, 6.00pm – Venue: Teece Museum, UC Arts City Location
Holding fast: conservation of the Logie Collection and new research into mounts for museum exhibitions
In this short-format public talk conservators Emily Fryer and Neeha Velagapudi (Canterbury Museum) will discuss the conservation of the Logie Collection after the Christchurch earthquakes, and explain their new research into the use of adhesive mounts for museum exhibitions.
Emily Fryer has a Masters degree in the Conservation of Historic Objects from Durham University and over 17 years' practical experience in treating a wide range of three-dimensional objects. She has worked as a conservator for Bristol City Museum, the Tate Gallery in London and the Antarctic Heritage Trust in Antarctica. She has worked privately since 2007 in Christchurch for a wide range of institutions and private individuals and is currently contracted to Canterbury Museum part time to work on objects for their upcoming book.
Neeha Velagapudi graduated with a Master of Cultural Materials Conservation from the University of Melbourne and went on to gain experience at a variety of institutions in Australia. She completed some short-term assignments with the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and was involved with the relocation of the Freemasons Victoria museum collection. She held the role of junior objects conservator with Emily Fryer Conservation for two years and is currently a Collections Technician Human History at Canterbury Museum.
FREE entry, but seats are limited so PLEASE register to attend.
School of Fine Arts
Congratulations to Ilam alumnus, Janna van Hasselt, this year's ZAFAA winner, hosted by Ashburton Art Gallery.
Fantastic to see so many Ilam graduates, undergraduates and staff exhibiting: Abby Baillie, Audrey Baldwin, Jen Bowmast, Rosetta Brown, Sarah Brown, Olivia Chamberlain, Kaitlin Fitzgibbon, Jacquelyn Greenbank, Ella Hickford, Phoebe Hinchliff, Mi Kyung Jang, Orissa Keane, Hannah Phillips, Emma Wallbanks. SoFA alumnus Melissa Macleod, last year's winner, returns to the gallery with a stunning exhibition 'The Trappings of Ghosts'.
Maurice Askew (1921-2020)
By the time Maurice came to New Zealand to teach Design at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1962, he had already amassed a lifetime of adventures and a long legacy of ground-breaking creative work.
As an RAF flight engineer on Lancaster Bombers during World War Two, he was shot down over Germany in 1944. Parachuting into a field of snow, he spent the next year and a half marching from one Prisoner of War camp to another. With his wry sense of humour, he once told me that he “…had seen enough of Germany... I don’t feel the need to go back again.”
After the war he had the opportunity, like so many demobbed soldiers, to retrain rather than go back to the old Anglepoise lamp factory that he worked in before his enlistment. He now had the chance to go to art school and follow his love for design and drawing. Subsequently, in the early 1950’s, he was employed by the fledgling Granada Television Studios where he created award-winning animations and amongst other things, was the set designer for the iconic Coronation Street television series.
Teaching was one of Maurice’s passions throughout his life and, in the early sixties, along with Doris his wife and a young family, he embarked on yet another challenge to sail to the other side of the world, to the University of Canterbury and to make Christchurch his new home.
His influence on the shift of design thinking in New Zealand in the 1960’s has been highly underrated but can be seen most strikingly in a series of decimal currency stamps from 1971 especially if compared to earlier designs. Here, Maurice was part of the winning design team alongside a number of recent graduates. During this time he worked on many other design projects such as the University of Canterbury Centenary and the 1974 Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch. The 1970’s was also a time when the Court Theatre evolved and part of their success was due to the vibrant theatre sets designed by Maurice.
By 1975 the demand by his students for film-making was so great that a separate Film Studio at Ilam was created. It remains arguably the oldest Film School in the country and I am very proud to say that it is still going strong today. Amongst its early students, it included NZ directors Vincent Ward and Gaylene Preston as well as the famous Australian producer Timothy White.
Maurice retired from UC in early 1981 and started yet another creative chapter in his life illustrating a number of children’s books and developing his distinctive watercolour style as he rendered striking landscapes locally, and from all over the world.
It is during this time that I first met Maurice who was still heavily involved in the Canterbury Film Society that he revitalised in the 1960’s. I will always remember his wonderful sense of humour and his kind, gentle and generous mentoring which stayed with him right until the end.
John Chrisstoffels Senior Lecturer in Film School of Fine Arts 10th March 2020
Antigua Boatsheds 1990 M.V.Askew
Classics
Assoc Prof Alison Griffith has been accepted as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is the first Senior Fellow in the College of Arts and the fourth in the University.
Philosophy
Jack Copeland has been invited to be a Mentor in the field of Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Aix--Marseille, France, in November 2020, and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 2021. Intercontinental Academies held at the Institutes "allow a selected group of fellows to meet a group of highly distinguished mentors to elaborate new interdisciplinary path-breaking research projects".
History
Katie Pickles has just completed a second and final year as a Royal Society Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow. The main output from the fellowship will be a monograph, Heroines in History: A Thousand Faces, to be published by Routledge. The second year of the fellowship was largely spent working on that book.
Publications during the second year of the fellowship are Katie Pickles “‘Fossilised prejudices’ and ‘Strange Revolution’: The 1919 Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act”, New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 53, no. 1, April, pp. 109-128; Katie Pickles, ‘Introducing Mrs Cook: in search of history’s ‘other half’, The Spinoff, 6 November (https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/06-11-2019/introducing-mrs-cook-in-search-of-historys-other-half/); and Katie Pickles, ‘Why New Zealand was first to grant women the vote in 1893 but then took 26 years to let them stand for parliament’, The Conversation, 19 September 2019 (https://theconversation.com/nz-was-first-to-grant-women-the- vote-in-1893-but-then-took-26-years-to-let-them-stand-for-parliament-123467).
Katie gave three invited seminars and lectures during the year; ‘Wheels of Change: Stories of Victorian Heroines’, the Forrester and Lemon Memorial Lecture in Oamaru, was drawn from monograph research, as was a WEA Christchurch lecture on Marie Curie. A lecture about the 1919 Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act concerned the women’s status in New Zealand society part of the fellowship.
Katie presented one conference paper during the year: ‘The Enlightenment, Mrs Cook and Tuia 250: Scandal and Celebrity’ at the New Zealand Historical Association Biennial Conference in Wellington. It connected Tuia 250 commemorations to heroines in history and women’s status in society.
The horrific events of 15 March diverted Katie back to her ongoing local research interests. She published ‘Rebuild the cathedral as an interfaith hub’, Press, 4 April, 16 (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch- shooting/111765160/rebuild-christ-church-cathedral-as-an-interfaith-hub) and was joined by Sam Neill in multiple news coverage. Katie appeared on RNZ The Panel with Wallace Chapman as a panellist with Morgan Godfery on the Christchurch Shootings. Later on in the year she was interviewed for the feature John Mccrone, ‘Christchurch and its search for a post-recovery sense of purpose’, The Press, 26 October that revisited her 2016 book Christchurch Ruptures. Katie also wrote the introduction to Colin Amodeo, Uncle John Watson Resident Magistrate: An anatomie of a small colonial outpost in mid-19th Century New Zealand, Caxton Press, Christchurch.
On Suffrage Day (19 September) Katie was interviewed by Ryan Bridge on Magic FM about the Government’s purchase of Kate Sheppard House. Katie’s new award is a prestigious appointment to write a new biography of Kate Sheppard (https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2020/new-kate-sheppard-biography-project-gifted-to-uc- historian.html).
Since her fellowship ended Katie has published on decolonisation and Kiwiana ( https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12- 02-2020/a-mufti-day-is-enormous-fun-but-time-to-give-it-a-new-name/).
Global, Cultural and Language Studies
Chinese On 4 March, the Chinese programme (GCLS) and the Confucius Institute co-organised the Mix and Mingle, which was attended by more than fifty people. The event functioned as a casual venue for the UC staff and students to have fun chats over pizzas and fried chickens. It has become an annual event of the Chinese programme.
Human Services and Social Work
The Department of Human Services and Social Work is delighted to announce that Professor Ken Daniels will this year graduate with the degree of Doctor of Letters (Social Work) from the University of Canterbury.
Ken established the first social work qualification at the University of Canterbury in 1975 and remained in the social work programme until his retirement in 2005. He is an Adjunct Professor of the Department of Human Services and Social Work and continues to be a strong supporter of the department who is always ready to help out when called upon. Since retiring Ken has continued to contribute to social work with children and their families with a focus on assisted human reproduction (AHR). He is one of the pioneers of research on the psychosocial understandings of the impact of infertility on families and the enhancement of child and family well-being. He has worked extensively in multidisciplinary research with colleagues from medicine, nursing, science, counselling, ethics and law. As a pioneering leader in the field of AHR his work has included developing educational material for professionals involved in AHR as well as contributing to government policy-making in this field, and performing expert witness roles in court proceedings around the world related to AHR. One of Ken’s great strengths is his ability to work from a multi-disciplinary perspective, which he views as at the heart of social work. His vast range of publications across a range of disciplines reflect his ongoing commitment to multidisciplinary research.
Social work programme The social work team hosted Professor Naoto Okada and a group of nine social work students from Hokusai Gakuen University in Japan from 24-28 February, as part of an International Exchange and Study Abroad Programme. The aim of the visit was for the Japanese students to learn about social work in Aotearoa/New Zealand and post-earthquake Christchurch. The programme included a mihi whakatau with the social work team and a presentation on our kaupapa. Julie Pratt, Manager of Student Care spoke of the support available through UC student care and the role of student care advisors. Dr Gretchen Perry and Dr Raewyn Tudor presented on their research in international and disaster social work. We were also pleased to have Sharyn Roberts, President of Aotearoa/New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) present on the role, principles and objectives of the ANZASW as a key professional body for social workers in Aotearoa. A highlight was a session in which our final year students and field educators shared their experiences of social work placements. The Japanese group were also welcomed on to Rehua marae and visited community-based social service agencies including Hillmorton Hospital Specialist Mental Health Service, Stand for Children – residential programme and Pegasus Health. This was the first time we have hosted students from Hokusai Gakuen University. There are already preliminary plans for another visit in 2022 and an invitation for our students to visit Hokusai Gakuen University too. We would like to thank Rāhera Cowie, Kaiārahi and our community partners for supporting this programme.
Political Science and International Relations
Sociology and Anthropology
Zhifang Song (Anthropology) was in north China doing his fieldwork when the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus epidemics cut short his research agenda. Realizing the value of the on-site anthropological examination of this unprecedented crisis, he started a non-traditional fieldwork on what was happening locally and nationally, gathering data from internet forums, social media and through his limited mobility around the local town. In addition, he is also planning a research project in Wuhan, the epicentre of this outbreak. With his pre-existing connections with South-Central University for Nationalities in Wuhan, he is mobilizing staff and students there for a joint research project, hoping to examine closely what has been happening in Wuhan and what impacts this crisis would have on people there. He has already set up an online forum to facilitate this effort. Currently 18 members have joined this research group.
Institute and Research Centre News
National Centre for Research on Europe
On Friday 6th March the second talk in our diplomatic seminar series was held in the newly refurbished NCRE seminar room on Level 6 Logie. The invited diplomatic speaker was the Italian Ambassador H.E. Fabrizio Marcelli who spoke on the role of Italy in the EU27, EU-NZ relations as well as Italy’s role in international affairs – including their response to the covid19 outbreak in northern Italy. An audience of some three dozen staff, students and the general public heard the Ambassador and engaged in a lively Q&A session. The video of the seminar can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUSSv8z7Lww9srpXCD1lVlw/
NEWS AND EVENTS http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/arts/arts-news/ UC Arts gives updates on news and events from across the College of Arts, with over 30 academic programmes there are always interesting events happening, many of which are open to students and the public for free. Follow us.