Hūmenga - Sunday

Free - limited to 15 spaces - please email geneva@artspace.org.nz to sign up

Nau mai, haere mai!
Hūmenga is an immersive and experimental workshop hosted by exhibiting artist Louie Zalk-Neale and contemporary dancer Joanne Hobern. Participants will be guided in an exploration of queer clothing and body-moving — this is open for people from any background and experience. Together, participants will experiment with new possibilities of what we can wear and how that makes us feel and act differently.

Participants will drift like hūmenga (wandering sea anemones), letting the currents help to decide our routes and finding new ways of interacting with ourselves, each other and our clothing. Let’s attach to a rock, alongside new friends, being grounded in our bodies, before floating away again, now more aware of how we wrap ourselves in clothing every day. Together in the space of Zalk-Neale’s work Kei Matairangi tōku kainga ināianei at Artspace Aotearoa, this workshop will investigate how gender and many other social structures are maintained in the context of clothing and movement.

You can attend this free workshop on Saturday or Sunday, please sign up for one session only by emailing your name and which session you will attend to geneva@artspace.org.nz. Bring a piece of clothing that you like to wear that you don’t mind other people touching (with care). Light kai and tea will also be provided.

There is a ramp to the space, an accessible toilet, and parking available. We aim to make this event as inclusive as we can so that everyone can engage fully, including people with disabilities. If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact Louie at louienealeartist@gmail.com.

Louie Zalk-Neale (Ngāi Te Rangi, Pākehā) is a queer performance artist, costume designer and community organiser raised in Hokitika and now based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Using second-hand materials and blending conventional and experimental techniques, Louie’s garments reference real clothing but come from a fluid, adaptive mindset with hopes of drawing people together. They aim to subvert the logics that are placed on people’s bodies. In 2019, Zalk-Neale presented an interactive performance in an opshop during Home Movies, an event hosted by CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand; and their adaptive queer costume-based performances were included in Performance Art Week Aotearoa in 2018. Alongside their art practice, Zalk-Neale is a facilitator of the artist run initiative MEANWHILE.

Joanne Hobern is a Playmaker and Dancer. She grew up in Cambridge, Waikato, and goes between Bush/City Nomad and Raglan Home-dweller. Joanne sees dance as a radical social and political act, and is interested in sharing Stories of the Body. She recently shared 'Dreaming Bodies Dance' at the Auckland Fringe Festival and performed in Foster Group's ORCHIDS last year.

Check out some of Louie's work here:

Instagram: @louiemole
www.performanceartweekaotearoa.com/jellyfish-do-return-gallery/
exhibition.costumeagency.com/project/video-cabinet