CIRCUIT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
Job Titles:
- Co - Editor of the Distance Plan
- Director at the Physics Room
Abby Cunnane is the Director at the Physics Room in Ōtautahi. Previously, she has worked as Director (Acting) and Assistant Director at ST PAUL Street Gallery AUT, and as Assistant Curator at City Gallery Wellington.
Alongside artist Amy Howden-Chapman, Cunnane is co-editor of The Distance Plan, a journal and exhibition platform that brings together artists, scientists, and writers to discuss climate change.
Amy Weng is an art writer, editor, and independent curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She is the founder of Hainamana, a website dedicated to Asian New Zealand contemporary art and culture, and was the organiser of the inaugural Asian Aotearoa Artists Hui in 2017. She has curated projects for Te Tuhi, RM Gallery, Meanwhile Gallery, and Window Gallery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
David Eggleton is a poet and writer. In 2019 he was appointed as the New Zealand Poet Laureate, a title he holds until 2022. He has been six-times Book Reviewer of the Year in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and has also produced several documentaries, CDs, and short films. Recent publications include Leaps and Bounds (2021), Throw Net: Upena Ho'olei (2021), and The Wilder Years: Selected Poems (2021).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore
David Teh is a curator and Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, specialising in Southeast Asian contemporary art.
David's previous curatorial projects include Returns, a project for the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018), Misfits: Pages from a Loose-leaf Modernity (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2017) and Unreal Asia (55. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2009).
David's writings have appeared in journals including Third Text, ARTMargins, Afterall, and Theory, Culture and Society. His 2017 book Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary (MIT Press) examined the transition of Thai contemporary art from a nationalist subjectivity to a post-national one. His analysis is set against the backdrop of the Thai monarchy's waning sovereignty amidst political and economic turmoil.
In 2020/21 David was CIRCUIT's Curator-at-large. He curated Sovereign Pacifics/Pacific Sovereigns, a series of new work for cinema.
Dr Mercedes Vicente is a curator, writer, and researcher. She is an Associate Tutor in Critical & Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, London. She has held positions as interim Director of Education and Public Programmes at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Curator of Contemporary Art at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand, and Research Curatorial Assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, among others.
Her AHRC-funded PhD at the Royal College of Art focused on the work of early video artist Darcy Lange. Mercedes has curated numerous exhibitions at institutions such as Tate Modern, Ikon Gallery, Camera Austria and CCA NTU Singapore. Her extensive writing and editorial credits include books, exhibition catalogues and art journals.
She is the editor of Darcy Lange: Study of an Artist at Work (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Ikon Gallery, 2008; Spanish edition EACC, 2012) and author of a forthcoming monograph on Lange (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).
In 2017, Mercedes was CIRCUIT's Curator-at-large. She curated Thick Cinema, a series of new artist's works for cinema.
Erika Balsom is a Reader in Film Studies at King's College London. She is the author of TEN SKIES (2021), An Oceanic Feeling: Cinema and the Sea (2018), After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video in Circulation (2017), and Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (2013). She is the co-editor of Artists' Moving Image in Britain Since 1989 (2019) and Documentary Across Disciplines (2016).
In 2018, she was the recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize and the Kovacs Essay Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
She holds a PhD in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University, an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College, and a BA (Hons) in Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto.
Before joining King's in 2013, she was Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2018, Erika was CIRCUIT's Curator-at-large. She commissioned a series of new works for cinema, Truth or Consequences.
Judy Darragh is a Auckland-based artist renowned for her brightly coloured sculptural assemblages, video, collage, photography, and poster art. Recent exhibitions include Foil, Montalvo Arts Centre, San Francisco, USA (2017); Girls on Hope, The Physics Room, Christchurch (2017); and the major sculptural commission, Limbo, North Atrium Sculpture Commission, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2015-2018). Darragh has been involved in artist-run initiatives, Teststrip and Cuckoo. She is the co-editor of Femisphere, a publication supporting women's art practices* in Aotearoa, and is a founding member of Arts Makers Aotearoa.
Job Titles:
- Director and Founder of CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image
Mark Williams is the Director and founder of CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image. His writing has been published in a variety of contexts including exhibition catalogues, magazines, and websites.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
Melanie Oliver is a Curator at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Previously, she was Senior Curator at The Dowse Art Museum in Te Awa Kairangi Hutt Valley and was Director of The Physics Room in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
She has held curatorial roles at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth and Artspace Sydney and was Gallery Manager at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space and Blue Oyster. Melanie has undertaken curatorial projects for One Day Sculpture, the Liverpool Biennial, RAMP Gallery, ST PAUL St Gallery and RM gallery.
Melanie also has an interest in the educational potential of cultural institutions, furthered by a period spent at the National Library of New Zealand. Melanie recently completed a PhD in Curatorial Practice at Monash University in Melbourne.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Staff and Board of Trustees Team