play_station film festival

10 October. Free entry.

Hosted by The Physics Room at Lumière Cinemas, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, 26 Rolleston Ave, Christchurch Central

The screening will commence at 6pm and run for approximately an hour, followed by a brief conversation between play_station artist-run space facilitators Angel C. Fitzgerald and Max Fleury.

play_station film festival presents a screening programme of moving image works, featuring three new commissions and six works total. It includes work from artists Tom Denize, A.J. Manaaki Hope, Dilohana Lekamge, Quentin Lind, Christopher Ulutupu and Yumoi Zheng. This is the second iteration of this festival, this year being screened in Ōtautahi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara and Tāmaki Makaurau.

Ōtautahi, hosted by Physics Room, Lumière Cinemas, 10 October
Te Whanganui-a-Tara, hosted by The Engine Room, 30 October
Tāmaki Makaurau, hosted by Artspace Aotearoa, 6 November

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Tom Denize is an emerging artist originally hailing from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa, now based in Naarm/Melbourne and currently undertaking a Masters of Fine Arts at Melbourne University. Utilising installation, video and photographic methods Tom’s practice is primarily concerned with queer theologies and temporalities, and how these things can reframe understandings of place, memory and desire.

A.J Manaaki Hope (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Mutunga, Pākehā) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the tensions between displacement, memory and landscape. Using handmade Taonga Puoro crafted from recycled native materials, they create evocative soundscapes that underscore themes of displacement and ecological fragility. Rooted in both visual and auditory art forms, their practice draws upon ancestral connections to place, often invoking the complex histories of colonialism and its lingering effects on the land.evoke raw and haunting soundscapes, mirroring the fractured connections between people and place. Blending visual art with sound, they seek to illuminate the ongoing impact of colonial histories on both ecological and cultural landscapes.

Dilohana Lekamge is an artist, writer, and curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau.
She is currently an Archivist at Satellites. Previously, she has been the Curator and Exhibitions Manager at DEPOT Artspace and Gallery Coordinator at Fresh Gallery Ōtara. She completed the writer's residency at RM Gallery and Project Space in 2023, curated the exhibition The house is full at Te Tuhi in 2022, and in 2021 she was the Associate Curator for The Performance Arcade. She was a Facilitator at MEANWHILE from 2017 to 2019. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries throughout Aotearoa.

Quentin Lind is a Manukau-born, Manawatū-raised artist who completed his MFA at Elam in 2016. His work examines geographic identity and is heavily influenced by visual and cultural language specific to the city he grew up in.

Christopher Ulutupu is a contemporary artist of Samoan, Niuean and German descent. Christopher uses the conventions of cinematic storytelling to interrogate the relationships between landscape and indigenous identities. Inspired early in his career by postcard imagery of Pacific Island nations marketed to early 20th Century European audiences, Christopher’s video work challenges an assumed affinity between exotic-nature and exotic-person.

Yumoi Zheng is a transfeminine queer artist who works across multiple media and art practices. Currently based in Hainan, China. Zheng explores the intricacies of her own identities through her creative practice, in which she talks about being apart from her family, growth, loneliness, blessings, and the secretive nature of memories. Recent exhibitions include Distance is a Blade, with Akil Ahamat and Olyvia Hong, curated by Amy Weng, The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space, 2024, always love xxx, with Isadora Lao, 2024, Toi Pōneke Arts Centre; and talk soon xxx, 2022, Playstation Artist-Run Space, all Pōneke.