Curatorial Statement | Artist's Résumé


For his project Outer Nebular Drifter at the Film Archive, VJ Rex has collaborated with various other artists including a painter, other VJs and sound artists. As he states, 'making work collaboratively on one level is a political act and on other levels it operates to open up the possibilities of what I can achieve - and most importantly it's fun to work with other people'.

Bright coloured vinyl wraps around the walls of the space onto which is projected an evolving mega video-work that is constantly updated by the artist and others. Taken from a wide variety of sources including television, old movies and the internet, the footage is then cut together and rearranged. VJ Rex has a fondness for Westerns and sci-fi movies - both of which are concerned with the exploration and occupation of so-called uncharted territories. 'I think that by living here in New Zealand and being Maori, my work will always be read as postcolonial,' he says. 'What I hope is that by making these works I'm clarifying my understanding of all these connections not by simplifying and filtering, but by allowing them to be complexly inter-related.'

Sarah Farrar

With thanks to Jenny Gillam, Emil McAvoy, Simon Morris and Kaleb Bennett.

During the course of the exhibition, VJ Rex will perform a public gig in the cinema with his collaborators. To find out more about when these public performances will be held, check out the calendar of events on this website.