Touring Screen and Healing Arts to Aotearoa
Screen artist Jenny Fraser is an invited guest artist in Aotearoa New Zealand as a presenter for the Healing Screen Arts
Lab in Auckland and at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in Nuhaka. Her featured animated work is a manifestation of an
Aboriginal aesthetic to communicate old and new cultures across languages and other borders. An art/science project
titled BUNURONG, the animation is created from documentation of deep sea creatures of the Bunurong National Park in
Southern Victoria, Australia.
The animation was commissioned by The Centre for Creative Arts at Latrobe University for 'Nature in the Dark II' an
international touring exhibition, which involved Jenny collaborating with scientists. She says of the Wairoa invitation
"It is a great honour to be invited to these events and to be so warmly welcomed into the Maori Screen community,
generously including the interests of us international Indigenous cousins. What a privilege to be able to present my
work and stay in a Marae, a spiritual meeting house, and to also be able to have a healing soak in Morere Hot Springs!
Maori really know how to host a festival gathering".
The festival is held at Kahungunu Marae and its smaller adjacent whare Te Tahinga Marae, which is home to a full weekend
of screenings, awards gala and associated program at Nuhaka, in the Wairoa District, over the New Zealand Queens
Birthday Weekend from May 29 to June 1. Coinciding with Matariki celebrations, the focus is on the best of Maori film
and film making, as well as a diverse selection of Indigenous works from all over the world. The Wairoa Festival has
been running since 2005 and is now an annual event. This year Wairoa is celebrating the 10th Anniversary and there are
over sixty films featured. Festival Director Leo Koziol said "Back in 2005, a baby sperm whale swam up the Nuhaka river with its mother, hung out, and turned around and went back out
to sea - on the weekend of the first Wairoa Māori Film Festival. Ten years later, it seems this portent has proven
right. Māori are making Māori stories, and taking them to the world!"
The theme for this year's 10th festival anniversary is Native Now! and there is also a special festival focus on curated Indigenous New Media Arts from around the world. New Zealand
Maori, Aboriginal, Native Canadian and Egyptian media artists are being profiled at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival. The
unique collection of screen-based works are being showcased at the Gala Awards Dinner, projected in a new
state-of-the-art sound and video system installed at the new festival venue, the Gaiety Theatre, in the township of
Wairoa, along with a keynote speaker, live kapa haka and musical performances.
Over the weekend beginning on May 23, Jenny Fraser also presented on her own PhD topic of The Healing Arts and
Decolonisation at a gathering in Auckland. Sacred Screen WebTV and the Wairoa Maori Film Festival partnered to present
the Screen Artist lab which was aimed at Filmmakers, Photographers and Screen performance artists. The 2-day lab held
Urban Marae style at Black Note provided a sacred space for Screen Artists to discuss and develop their intuitive
process for the creation of revolutionary screen arts offerings in visual story telling with moving image. "I met lab presenter Hiona Henare at Wairoa Festival in 2013, and then invited her to represent Maori at my own event,
SOLID SCREEN Festival and Healing Yarning Circle over 5 days at Innot Hot Springs in Far North Queensland. Back then,
she said she wanted to take the idea home, and she has, so its heartwarming to see the idea flourish and still be
involved in growing the field for women screen makers. We are also hoping that a similar event will take place in
Saskatoon in Canada next year, presented by TRIBE Director Lori Blondeau, and in Geraldton, Western Australia, by Yamaji
writer Charmaine Green."
Dates: Wairoa Maori Film Festival, Nuhaka, Wairoa, New Zealand May 30 - June 1 2015
Healing Screen Arts Lab, Black Note, Auckland, New Zealand May 23-24 2015
ENDS