The concept of curating and directing CoCA has now become a reality. I have said my farewell to Plymouth in the UK and flown across the globe and landed in Christchurch. I am now well into my second week of work on New Zealand soil.

On route to Christchurch I was fortunate to experience the Venice Biennale. Located in a sensational, historic setting, this is the largest of the world’s biannual contemporary art events. Okwui Enwezor is the renowned curator of the main exhibition All the World’s Futures. On for another five months, the exhibition is essentially about the state of the world today and how artists are reacting to and making sense of global issues. The exhibition is spread across two sites: the Arsenale, a beautiful former rope and ship building yard; and the well-maintained Giardini (gardens), surrounded by 29 pavilions built from 1907 onwards by the various nations participating in this enduring Biennale. There is also a surprisingly extensive collateral programme of creative projects and exhibitions around the city.

Experiencing so much artwork in one place left me with many highlights and potential resonances for CoCA. The pavilions give you a sense of global contemporary art, some of the works clearly defining the state of artists’ respective countries.

Artist Simon Denny, who is representing New Zealand, was extremely well received. His project Secret Power was partly prompted by the impact of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks of National Security Agency (NSA) PowerPoint slides which outlined top-secret US telecommunications surveillance programmes. These slides highlighted New Zealand’s role in US intelligence work, as a member of the US-led ‘Five Eyes’ alliance. Now out in the open, the slides have come to represent international surveillance work and its impact on individual privacy. Denny’s ‘Biennale Arte 2015’ project has gained lots of international press and put New Zealand in the spotlight in the ‘art world’.

For me, Chinese artist Xu Bing’s Phoenix (above) most powerfully aligned with the curator’s concept for the Venice Biennale. Throughout China’s history, every dynasty has had its form of phoenixes. Representing luck, unity, power and prosperity, these mythological birds have, for the most part, been benevolent, gentle creatures. The pair in this exhibition, made out of materials used for China’s commercial development, reflects the grimmer and grittier face of China today. Essentially, the phoenix expresses unrealised hopes and dreams.

An opportunity that I hope to bring to CoCA from Venice is a fantastic work by British/Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah. I have worked with Akomfrah and the production team Smoking Dogs over the last few years, resulting in commissioned work. Akomfrah is a polemic artist, and working with him has definitely impacted on my thinking as a curator.

Akomfrah’s presentation Vertigo Sea is on display in the Biennale’s Central Pavilion. It is a new three-screen/channel film installation about whaling, the environment and our relationship with the sea. For the last 30 years, spanning cinema, television and gallery-based installations, Akomfrah’s work has engaged with questions of memory and identity, creating moving-image works, which give a voice to African migration in Europe. He fills gaps in history using archival material to create documentary-style ‘film essays’ and speculative fictional stories about our past. He is renowned for pushing the boundaries of documentary film.

During my quick four days in Venice, I enjoyed making new connections and developing existing relationships, both with the art and with the people. I am looking forward to applying this learning to CoCA’s projects here in Christchurch.

I am a firm believer that to make knowledge and skills relevant to a location you have to first experience the place. I’m really looking forward to experiencing and learning about the city so I can get a sense of how CoCA can once again become a key focal point and resource for the public and local art communities. I am extremely excited to be here!

Kia ora koutou.

Paula Orrell
Director & Principal Curator, CoCA

Image: Xu Bing’s Phoenix (2015) hanging between two boathouses at the Arsenale.