Toi Whakaari Students Manifest A Cabinet Of Curiosities

Aotearoa’s newest makers and designers manifest a series of works across their diverse practice for your viewing pleasure.

Manifest is Toi Whakaari’s annual event showcasing the work of Aotearoa’s newest makers and designers for stage and screen. The Design and Set & Props Departments combine to celebrate the work of students from the Bachelor of Design (Stage and Screen) and the NZ Diploma of Scenic Construction and Properties.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Manifest was not available for public viewing during its 2021 run from 3-5 November. Despite this, Manifest was still attended by a large in-house audience and has been filmed and put online so our supporters and the wider community can still see the wonderful works of our talented graduating students.

Each Manifest has its own flavour and 2021 was as diverse and exotic as ever. Our students created spaces, images and objects to fascinate and excite.

Set & Props students created a major work which is an opportunity to learn from industry mentors and deep dive into new techniques and materials. We had the board game from Jumanji, a fairytale castle, and a “fully operational” light sabre. There were swords made from real steel and stunt knives safe to fight with. There was even a portal to another dimension.

For our Design students, Manifest was an opportunity to present themselves as artists. Work included costume, light and spatial design for live productions, a diverse range of short films and individual expressions of performance design for live and screen art. It was an exciting and dynamic showcase of creative kaupapa.

Hollie Cohen, 2021 Design graduate and Manifest exhibitor, describes the experience as one that will stay with her for a long time.

“I’ve spent a lot of my journey at Toi Whakaari chasing lm design - wanting to understand how mise en scene can contribute to storytelling,” Hollie says. “Our eclectic and exciting lm projects that we work on throughout the degree have always kept my love of lm alive and thriving - but for my independent practice this year I wanted to explore my design craft beyond lm, to see where my love of written word can live in the realm of performance design. Based heavily around installation and and at times movement and projection, my project has explored themes of human connection, seemingly mundane life, memory, and vulnerability.”

2021 Set & Props graduate Megan Gladding, along with her multi-media production company MEAN Productions, has created videos documenting each exhibitor and the opening of the event. Read more about MEAN Productions here: https://www.meanproductions.co.nz/

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