Panel discussion with Connah Podmore, Johanna Mechen and Flora Feltham
Saturday 27 January
2 - 3pm
Connah Podmore, Johanna Mechen and Flora Feltham
Join artists Connah Podmore and Johanna Mechen, and writer Flora Feltham, as they discuss some of the inspiration behind Podmore's exhibition Ordinary Devotion, and the influence that domestic environments has had over their respective practices.
Artist biographies:
Connah Podmore
Connah Podmore is an artist and writer living in Pōneke. Working primarily in the field of drawing, Connah’s work regularly examines memory, and draws from the simple and everyday. Connah was the winner of the 2023 Parkin Drawing Prize and has exhibited throughout Aotearoa. Recent exhibitions include Care taking (MEANWHILE, Wellington), The room where your brother was born (RM, Auckland) and This body also holds mine (Te Tuhi, Auckland). Connah has contributed written work to Plates Journal, Memory Connection and SADO, and co-authored an article published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Connah completed an MFA with distinction at Massey University, Wellington, in 2013.
Flora Feltham
Flora Feltham is a writer and weaver from Pōneke. She gained her Masters of Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2021, where her essay collection “Bad Archive” was awarded the Modern Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize. It will be published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2024. Her work has appeared in Turbine Kapohau, ArtNow and The Guardian.
Johanna Mechen
Johanna Mechen works with stills, moving image and poetry in the telling of personal, ecological, historical and culture stories. These stories explore the relationship between modalities of lens-based making and performativity in research collection, often asking groups or individuals to play a role by participating or collaborating in her storytelling. She looks in particular at how time investment though volunteering and labouring, can enrich artistic investigation and make connections within communities. Her work comes from a meditation on the medium and its multifaceted nature, as well as a desire to extend photography’s ability to communicate lived experienced and invisible stories both through and beyond its many processes. She completed a Master of Fine Arts program at Massey University Wellington in 2014 and her practice has included exhibiting, curating, writing and teaching photography. She is currently a PhD candidate at Massey University Wellington where she is making an essay film on the lived experience and transitionality of motherhood in the liminal time of covid. She lives in the Hutt Valley with her partner and two teenage children.
Ordinary Devotion
13 January - 09 February
Ordinary Devotion, is an installation of large-scale drawings and simple architectural interventions reflecting on domestic space and motherhood. This artwork stems from an established line of work exploring interior surfaces, shadow and the many individual histories layered within our homes.
