Satellite Gallery Newton Auckland
cnr St Benedict Street and Newton Road
quote used as a title is from Lou Reed
On Monday 23 May at 5.30pm I opened my exhibition at Satellite Gallery. Now the work remaining is on show at my Happy Tea House, Grey Lynn, Auckland NZ, ask me for more info.
Writing workshops ran on both the Saturdays. A performance night with open mic closes the show, guests Genevieve McClean, John Goudge, Sandra Bell, Ross Brighton, Raewyn Alexander - it was stunning, thanks everyone for a great evening.
“One exciting moment occurred when I put two punk bands on Captain Cook's ship, history rewrites feel intoxicating. The Scavengers and The Suburban Reptiles on The Endeavour, quite something. I believe it happened. Who else would Cook have as sailors?”
In the gallery, people made their own poetry, after donating to Women's Refuge, from words cut from newspapers and magazines. They kept the results, destroyed them or placed them on display. Some audio poetry also played during the exhibition. I am making a book of those poems and soon publishing the 'if walls could talk' poem which people also wrote, publishing this on my facebook.
The writing workshop, Writing with Fire, is about accessing emotions safely, then how to control and order thinking, make what we want with our language. I shall offer this again to new participants at some stage, it was really successful. Thanks to those who attended.
The other workshop is now renamed Sound Sound Sound and is about performing and reading work. This could be available again later, I want to do some retraining first with John Goudge.
Alexander teaches relaxation techniques and helps people refine their voice, people may also create poetry or prose during workshops. She's taken such workshops for over 15 years with many successes. Alexander also offers advice on publishing and any difficulties you have with your own writing, at the end of each workshop.
Her poetry, Punk Settlers, (a PS from history) written especially for this exhibition will be performed in future and was performed for the exhibition, it's included in visual art and available in hand-made books made from clean, found paper including old envelopes, atlases, brown paper bags and redundant science books.
Alexander's writing history is on the NZ Book Council website -
