Anna Brewster

Sandy Callister and Serena Bentley: Govett-Brewster Symposium 2016

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• published: 11 Aug 2016
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Sandy Callister, independent curator and author. Serena Bentley, Assistant Curator Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Victoria. Govett-Brewster Symposium: Practices in Contemporary Photography, 8 Jul 2016 Len Lye Centre Cinema Govett-Brewster Art Gallery New Plymouth, New Zealand Dr. Sandy Callister Fragments of a World: artists working in film and photography 1973-1985 Sandy Callister is an independent visual historian and curator. Her obsession is to bend the mind’s eye to the shadowy spaces, or to what is hiding in plain sight. She is beguiled by subjects that for one reason or another are often out-of-sight, marginalised or elided from memory: war photography; medical photography and the male body as the site of trauma; death and photography; Victorian settler and Māori women and photographic practises; and the experiential work of women artists and film-makers. In 2005 Sandy gained her doctorate in visual history from the University of Auckland. She is the author of The Face of War: New Zealand’s Great War Photography (2008) and in 2008 curated The Hidden Faces of War: New Zealand’s Great War Photography at the Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland. In 2011 she guest curated The Victorian Album: the Feminine, and the Personal at the Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University. Her recent exhibition, Fragments of a World, opened at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington and toured to Michael Lett Gallery in Auckland. She is now working on a book about the exhibition. Serena Bentley Peter Peryer – Looking Deeply Into Things Serena Bentley will examine works from across New Plymouth artist Peter Peryer’s oeuvre to reveal themes and ‘templates’ that recur across his practice. Serena Bentley is a New Zealand-born, Melbourne based curator and art writer. She is currently Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, at the National Gallery of Victoria where she recently curated Jess Johnson: Wurm Haus and Jamie North: Rock Melt (both 2015). Prior to this, Serena worked as Artistic Program Manager at artist development organisation Next Wave and in commercial galleries including: Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Starkwhite, Auckland, as well as in a curatorial capacity at Auckland Art Gallery. She was the recipient of a travel grant from the Ian Potter Foundation in 2014, curatorial resident at Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2012 and an alumnus of Gertrude Contemporary’s Emerging Writers Program. The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery hosted a symposium on 8 July 2016 with curators, artists and academics from New Zealand and Australia to discuss the changing landscape of contemporary photography in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. Other speakers included: Daniel Palmer, Associate Professor Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne Edith Amituanai, artist Peter Ireland, artist, independent critic Geoffrey Batchen, Professor School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington For more information about the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery visit our website www.govettbrewster.com/