Events

Join artist Dulce Lamarca for an endurance online performance taking place on Rāhina 23 Mei / Monday 23 May, 8am–2pm via Zoom.

Join us Saturday 7 May from 4pm to kōrerorero with Vicki Lenihan, and take home your very own rourou filled with a degustation prepared by Lenihan from farm-grown seasonal produce and mahika kai.

Prototype is a series of workshops on game making, storytelling and world-building. Facilitated and designed by Narrative Designer Lisa Blakie, this series includes entry-level Dungeons and Dragons workshops and practical tutorials using freeware. Explore Dungeons and Dragons in this friendly two-day entry-level workshop, led by Narrative Director and a Co-Director of Atawhai Interactive, Lisa Blakie.

Prototype is a series of workshops on game making, storytelling and world-building. Facilitated and designed by Narrative Designer Lisa Blakie, this series includes entry-level Dungeons and Dragons workshops and practical tutorials using freeware. These two workshops will introduce artists to Blender and go through the steps to build a 3D character.

A talk between two of the contributing artists to Idle Hands, Dulce Lamarca and Zoe Thompson-Moore, with curator and Blue Oyster director, Hope Wilson.

Pū0r0 PL4Y V0L 002: Inside my Papahou symphony No. 2, a new sound work by M4URI M4STA also known as Abigail Aroha Jensen.

dolphins and pearls presents a collection of love songs from Tui Vutu to Tokairahe. This work pays tribute to Tui’s retrieval of Tokairahe’s shell necklace, an act of devotion in which he chased down Dakuwaqa, the mighty Shark God.

He puninga toi a Ngā Awe Ngaro - Lost Souls nā te kapa hou o Tīwai. Nau mai, mātaki mai i te puninga toi nei ki te Whare o Tio Kikorangi, Blue Oyster Art Project Space, 16 Dowling Street, mai i te 5:30–8pm.

Lost Souls is an installation by the newly formed group Tīwai. This installation will be available to view in person at Blue Oyster Art Project Space, 16 Dowling Street between 5:30–8pm.

Join artist Zoe Thompson-Moore for a daily invitation to play as an extension of her artwork Pissing While, which is currently installed as part of the exhibition Idle Hands.

Blue Oyster Performance Series is an annual showcase of experimental and interdisciplinary performance.

Join artist Georgette Brown and Madison Kelly at Orokonui Ecosanctuary to contemplate the complex world of mycelium and hear how mycelium and fungi have guided Georgette’s current exhibition I See Mycelium / I Hear the Sound of Breaking Glass at Blue Oyster Art Project Space.

Join us for a shared meal with a menu designed by artist Georgette Brown. This meal will take inspiration from Georgette's current exhibition I See Mycelium / I Hear the Sound of Breaking Glass which is a multi-media love letter to fungi and mycelium. 

Join us for a talk with Tāmaki Makaurau based practitioner Peter Simpson as he reflects upon ideas within his current exhibition. This performance lecture has been prerecorded and will be available online from Wednesday 1st December.

BIG FISH LITTLE BOAT opens a conversation about what it means to be a practicing artist at opposite ends of the country; developing a bond between the two galleries with the goal of future north/south collaboration. New video work by Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland based artist Jo Bragg, available to view here.

Experience the interior of heat transfers at golden hour, as the evening sun hits the lower corner of the window and reflects off the copper lining. 

We invite you to drop in, have a cup of tea and meet the artists Orissa Keane and Min-Young Her. Keane and Her will be available to answer questions and chat about their current exhibition Made from local and imported ingredients over tea and snacks in the gallery. Feel free to drop in anytime within the hour, all welcome.

A conversation between Turumeke Harrington and guests Kiri Jarden, Metiria Stanton Turei and Piupiu Maya Turei about taonga, value, and embodied ancestry.

You are warmly invited to join Miranda Bellamy, Amanda Fauteux, and Madison Kelly on a plant-focused loop walk. We will walk together as a group for approximately 45 minutes, briefly stopping at plants to kōrero about their lives and their stories.

Please join Miranda and Amanda at Blue Oyster as they discuss the research and methodologies behind radiata, share insights into their concurrent exhibition A Wardian Case at RM Gallery and contextualise their practice more broadly. Afternoon tea provided.

Kōrerorero with us!

Over two days Arielle Walker will be present at Blue Oyster weaving, reading poetry, and holding space for visitors to kōrero with her in her exhibition distance rewoven from the roots to the stem.

Join us for a conversation with artist Arielle Walker on the works in her current exhibition distance rewoven from the roots to the stem. This conversation will unravel the whakapapa connections and pūrākau embedded within the materials of Arielle’s works and the dyeing, weaving, and other textile processes Arielle uses.

Feel the grass, kissing the wind.

Queerness is not new. This is a performance of our past, present and future beyond binary gender and sexuality. Through whakapapa we find our deepest roots in the natural world, where we ground ourselves and move freely as a queer abundance.

Please join us for a workshop with artists Connor Fitzgerald and Louie Zalk-Neale as part of their exhibition GLOSSY LEAF kiss.

Join us for a talk with Luke Shaw, Phoebe Hinchliff, and Nathan Pōhio. 

Exclusive live performances from E-Kasino's famous in house bands! 

Zine workshops will be held at Blue Oyster each Saturday from 11- 3pm for the duration of E-Kasino.

A discussion on alternative futures to capitalism, what a world without problem gambling might look like and where E-Kare got the inspiration for E-Kasino. With Lidia Grigorut, financial expert/Lipstick Socialist, and Sarah Campagnolo, Health Promoter at the Problem Gambling Foundation, chaired by E-Kare.

SPRING INTERLUDE is Martin Sagadin’s first feature drama film. After the New Zealand International Film Festival and a small self-distributed run around New Zealand, Blue Oyster is pleased to finally bring the film to Ōtepoti. This screening was originally organised as part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival in March but was postponed due to the lockdown.

Join us for a conversation between artists Katrina Beekhuis and Torben Tilly. Katrina will begin by speaking to her current exhibition Windows and her wider research practice followed by a discussion with Torben about their collaborative work radio/rain.

Join us for a screening of video work by Ōtepoti-based practitioners and celebrate the final week of TIME is Love. 

Blue Oyster is calling for proposals for an upcoming series of printed projects which fit inside an A5 envelope and will be distributed to subscribers via post. 

Applications close Friday 5 June, 4pm.

Thursday 6th June, 5:30pm - 6:30pm 
Blue Oyster Art Project Space
16 Dowling Street 
Free to attend, all welcome.

Join us for a free workshop with Boosted where you'll learn how to craft your arts project into a compelling story your community will want to back.

Exploring how to work within and beyond established formats such as the review, the interview and the essay, Intensive 2: Form and Voice considered the politics of how readers are addressed alongside the structure and development of texts.

Extended Conversations is a new programme for emerging art writers based in Aotearoa, co-convened by Enjoy Public Art Gallery and Blue Oyster Art Project Space. Part online publishing platform and part mentoring programme, this initiative will build, sustain and share dialogue between emerging participants and established writers throughout 2018.

Join Lana Lopesi (Editor-in-Chief and Visual Arts Co-Editor) & Rosabel Tan (Founding Editor and Director) of The Pantograph Punch in a conversation about critical art writing and reviewing. We will look at questions such as, what purpose does it serve? What does good art writing look like? Or for artists, how do you pitch your work to the critics?

Becky Richards and Blue Oyster seek interested contributors to enable the generation of fresh, round forms and thoughts. You are warmly invited to attend an open workshop, made up of a simple exercise focusing on organic roundness, and its intrinsic appeal.

Led by Taarati Taiaroa and Elisapeta Heta, Taharangi Hou is a three day wānanga that invites interested parties to come together under the rising of Matariki/Puaka to propose, explore, discuss and dissect key contemporary Māori art texts in relation to emerging arts practice and three key spaces in Dunedin.

THIS CLOUD IS QUEERING! is a community dance project by val smith based around a process of mapping queer and trans experiences of public space across Dunedin city. 

[Supported by the 2016 Dunedin Fringe Festival] Artists, Performance artists, enthusiasts, audience members and passersby alike were welcome to participate in any capacity over the duration of the workshop at the Blue Oyster, which eventually led to all participants becoming turquoise over three stages with a personal temporary transformation.

What role does writing play in your professional practice? How can you approach editing so it's constructive and collaborative? Ever wondered what an en-dash is, and when to use one?

Led by contemporary Maori art curator Megan Tamati-Quennell (Ngai Tahu and Te Atiawa), this workshop designed to bring artists, writers and creatives wanting to engage with Maori art, writing or curatorial practice together during the rising of Matariki/Puaka.

What does community engagement mean to you? What is a community practice? What does local mean today? A workshop exploring, connecting and localising the art making process. Lead by Amiria Puia-Taylor, 2014 CNZ Pacifika Intern at Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust.

How would you approach building a professional art practice? What is involved in developing yourself as an emerging art practitioner? A workshop on developing your skills, resources and experiences as an artist. Presenters: Ruth Watson and Melanie Oliver.