Wednesday 10 April 2019 12:30pm
The 2019 University of Otago Arts Fellow (from left) Antonio Ssebuuma (Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance), Dylan Lardelli (Mozart Fellow), Emily Duncan (Robert Burns Fellow), Fifi Colston (University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence) and Imogen Taylor (Frances Hodgkins Fellow). Photo: Sharron Bennett.
The University of Otago’s 2019 Arts Fellows were officially welcomed to the University community last night at a function at the Hocken Collections.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne gave a background to the various Arts Fellowships and welcomed the Fellows, saying the “remarkable” creative journey they were embarking on made an invaluable contribution to the University’s “heart and soul”.
"For many decades, we also have been providing vital opportunities for leading artists to come and join our campus community, to use this special place together with dedicated time, to produce new work."
Division of Humanities Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tony Ballantyne spoke about Otago’s strong history of contributing to the arts, literature and music in Aotearoa New Zealand, before giving insights into each Fellows’ background and work.
“These Fellowships are a clear manifestation of the University’s ongoing desire to support our creative artists and to help enable the public to engage with original work created here on our campus and in our city. For many decades, we also have been providing vital opportunities for leading artists to come and join our campus community, to use this special place together with dedicated time, to produce new work,” Professor Ballantyne said.
Professor Ballantyne unpacked the evocative phrase ‘New Zealand art and letters’ in relation to literary magazine Landfall, and the writing of one of Otago’s great early scholars, EH McCormick.
McCormick wrote about the idea that being a man or woman of letters or an artist in New Zealand was an ‘absurd ambition’.
“The wise benefactors who laid the foundation of these Fellowships, together with the hard work of the artists, the commitment of the University, and the strong support of the arts community has shown that seemingly ‘absurd ambitions’ can be made into concrete realities . . . we look forward to seeing what these Fellows will add to that ever-deepening stream of cultural production,” Professor Ballantyne said.
About the Fellows:
Antonio Ssebuuma - Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance
Ssebuuma describes his appointment to the Fellowship as a “landmark” in his career that fills him with “great joy and faith”.
“It is a very uncommon opportunity getting someone all the way from Kampala, East Africa, to Dunedin in the far south of New Zealand. It confirms how the Fellowship walks the talk, and I am going to give it my best execution to give more pride to the name.”
The self-described dance-nomad says he will spend the year on a project that links communities in Dunedin and integrating his dance experience into institutional settings.
“I hope to pave new ways for collaborations and partnerships as I bring together people of diverse backgrounds into a safe space to build mutual relationships and networks.”
Emily Duncan - Robert Burns Fellow
Otago Theatre Studies alumna Dr Emily Duncan is an award-winning playwright based in Dunedin who first started writing for theatre in 1999.
She feels honoured that her name will be added to the list of literary luminaries who have held the Burns Fellowship.
Her recent work includes Hold Me (BATS theatre, September 2016), Shaken (2016 Wellington Short + Sweet Festival), and Fallen Angels (Young and Hungry 2017 Festival of New Theatre).
She was the St Hilda’s Collegiate Inaugural Artist in Residence (2017) and in this role she wrote the play In Our Shoes, which was shortlisted for the Adam NZ New Play Award in 2018. Eloise in the Middle (winner Playmarket Plays for the Young 2013) was to be produced at the Fortune Theatre in September 2018.
For the Fellowship, she has three projects on the go: a playscript about Emily Siedeberg and Ethel Benjamin, commissioned by the University of Otago for its 150th celebrations; writing two follow-up seasons of the Dark Dunedin podcast, which was released in March; and, finally, she will make a departure from her playwriting to work on a book.
Imogen Taylor - Frances Hodgkins Fellow
After holding the McCahon House Artists’ Residency in 2017, working as a studio artist at Corban Estate Art Centre, and having two successful solo shows at both Artspace and the Michael Lett gallery in Auckland, Taylor is looking forward to developing a “substantial body of work” for her first significant South Island solo exhibition.
“I’m at a really exciting point with my painting where it’s increasingly intersecting queer theory, modernism and process-driven abstraction. I’m intending to explore these collisions further, utilising the resources of Otago University and collaborating with local architects and artists,” she says.
Since graduating from the Elam School of Fine Arts in 2010, she has become known for the flattened geometric configurations of her paintings. Her work has primarily focused on balancing abstraction and representation, referencing modernist art movements such as Cubism, Bauhaus and New Zealand regionalism.
Fifi Colston - The University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence
Colston is an award-winning junior fiction novelist, children’s book illustrator, and non-fiction author.
Many will know her from her time as arts and crafts presenter on TVNZ’s What Now and The Good Morning Show. Her talent has also seen her work with Weta Workshop, Peter Jackson’s Stone Street Studios, Pukeko Pictures and The Production Shed as a costumier, puppet maker, illustrator and crafts expert.
The Fellowship will allow work on a young-adult book “with an illustrated difference”.
“I have been playing with an idea for some time that encompasses the main strands of my creative career; writing, illustration and wearable art. I find I cannot comfortably forsake one passion for another and neither can my protagonist,” she says.
Along with providing the “absolute luxury” of being able to create a major work without having to worry about how to pay the bills, she is looking forward to getting to know the Otago area, and accessing relevant research that is only available at the University.
Dylan Lardelli - Mozart Fellow
As the current Mozart Fellow, Lardelli spent 2018 presenting several concerts at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, giving lectures about his work at the University and talks during OUSA’s Art Week.
Previously, he has been the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer in residence. His compositions have been programmed in leading festivals and concert series in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, the UK, the US and Asia. His works have been performed by such noted ensembles as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Vortex, the NZTrio, and by members of the Ensemble Modern and Musikfabrik.
He has won the Asian Composers League Young Composers Competition in Tokyo, the Edwin Carr Scholarship, and the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund Award (2017).
As a guitarist, he has performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Stroma Contemporary Music Ensemble and the 175 East New Music Ensemble. Most recently, along with his work in Dunedin, Dylan has presented solo recitals in the United Kingdom, and presented new works for Baroque instruments, including Baroque guitar, in Melbourne.
He is looking forward to the second year of the Fellowship having spent the past year getting to know Dunedin, its venues, artists and people.
“I'm particularly looking forward to meeting more local musicians, and getting to know their work, with the intention of working together longer term,” he says.