Liquifying Light

Liquifying Light explores the dynamic relationship between experimental contemporary photography and environmental physics. As an open-ended dialogue featuring contemporary New Zealand artists, this exhibition examines relationships between nature and the various ways of capturing movement and light; and how these factors interact.

Liquifying Light connects works by artists who utilize the ebb and follow of the natural world. Liquifying Light showcases photographic pieces and water-based artworks, each work a result of the artist’s exploration with chance and uncertainty.

Traditional and historical ways of photographing imagery such as medium format negatives, pin hole cameras and cyanotypes have been used differently to their traditional function and are recontextualized by the artists in the exhibition. They experiment with material constraints and the happenstance of each mark, distortion and colour that appears when collaborating with natural forces. 

Rolling a wheel shaped camera down a hill, each stroke of light determined by the forces acting upon the exploratory camera. 
Tendrils of pigments exploring, creating pathways through sea water. 
Photosensitive fabrics mimicking watery ripples and disruptions in eroded bedrock. 
Sheets of medium format deprived of light, let to soak in river systems that have been detrimentally affected by agriculture.  

Daisy Nicholas plays with these chance encounters, creating large-scale environmental Cyanotypes activating her local environment. She allows photographic chemicals to interact with wave patterns and minerals within the salty shallow water, indexing the tide and blooms of salt where the chemicals and minerals interact. 

Artists featured:
Trish Campbell
Ben Cauchi
Darren Glass
Joseph Michael
Daisy Nicholas
Kiran McKinnon
Kate van der Drift



Curated by Daisy Nicholas and Isabella von Lanthen,
The Arts House Trust Summer Intern Programme 2023