CHRISTOPHER BRADDOCK

Braddock, Christopher; Gordon-Smith, Ioana; Waerea, Layne; and Wynne-Jones, Victoria (Eds.). 2024. Resetting the Coordinates: An anthology of performance art in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand: Massey University Press.

The first anthology/reader of performance art of Aotearoa New Zealand, Resetting the Coordinates offers a lively, 50-year critical survey of Aotearoa New Zealand’s globally unique performance art scene. 

From the post-object and performance art of the late 1960s to the rich vein of Māori and Pacific performance art from the early 1990s, its 18 chapters by researchers and practitioners is a major reference for art and performance communities of New Zealand, Australia and further afield. 

It discusses the influential work of Jim Allen, Phil Dadson, Peter Roche and Linda Buis, performance art initiatives in post-earthquake Christchurch and queer performance art, among many other topics. 

Available here: https://masseypress.ac.nz/products/resetting-the-coordinates

Braddock, Chris; Shingade, Balamohan. Collaborative efforts in recent performances and participatory artworks. Journal of Visual Art Practice Volume 24, 2025 – Issue 1-2: “Between Hawaiki Nui and the Liquid Continent: Art Practices from the Pacific” edited by Amanda Watson. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2025.2506898

This essay considers collaborative methods from the perspective of an artist and a curator. Our reflections stem from within creative practice processes as a way of exploring modes of knowledge interactions, learning, and collaboration. We reflect on performances and participatory artworks that involve complex social interactions across their planning, making and realisation, and draw on conversations to reveal the volatility and changeability of artworks and curatorial strategies. We emphasise that collaborative, cooperative and participatory methods in visual arts projects are inextricably social and political. We discuss two visual arts performance and participatory projects – Invitation to Dialogue (2019) and Conversation Mat (2022) undertaken at AUT ST Paul St Gallery (renamed Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery) in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, aimed at transforming the artistic, curatorial and participatory ego through an exploration of voice. In so doing, we question artistic, curatorial, and participatory ownership and/or dominance. We explore distinctions between project-time and use-time as a way of contrasting designed aspects of collaboration with those that go beyond the control of makers in risky ways. We draw attention to art/life orientations which generate many modes of collaboration. We discuss an attentiveness necessary for attending to the differing speeds of participants.

Open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2025.2506898 or download from the link below:

Vea, John; Braddock, Chris. Moana Nui Social Art Practices in Aotearoa. DATJournal Design Art and Technology, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 2, p. 291-324, Nov. 2018. ISSN 2526-1789. Available at: https://ppgdesign.anhembi.br/datjournal/index.php/dat/article/view/95

This article discusses emerging methodologies in Moana Nui a Kiwa (MNak) (Pasific Peoples) performance art practices in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). It explores the ways in which artistic research guides research questions and final research outputs within the context of a practice led PhD degree. John Vea’s (Tonga/NZ) underlying research methods reference Timote Vaioleti’s work on ‘talanoa’ as a MNak notion about respectfulness in personal encounters with people. Vea’s performance practice engages with MNak minority groups — exploring tropes of migration and subsequent interaction with hegemony — where ‘co-operations’ with collectives and small groups challenge some traditional research models of leadership and authorship. These indigenous approaches encourage a different reading of theorists such as Chantel Mouffe and her ideas of navigating artistic activism and agonistic spaces of shared cooperation.

Webb, Olivia; Braddock, Chris. Rehearsing Practice as Research. DATJournal Design Art and Technology, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 2, p. 325-352, Nov. 2018. ISSN 2526-1789. Available at: https://ppgdesign.anhembi.br/datjournal/index.php/dat/article/view/92

This article explores ways that artists work with people in forms of social performance art practices. Approaching, directing and organising people involves an ethics of attentiveness, including modes of listening, that allows for diverse research outcomes. In this context, Lisbeth Lipari’s 2014 book Listening, Thinking, Being: Toward an Ethics of Attunement discusses philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’ notion of the face-to-face encounter with another as a meeting that must embrace difference. Practices of listening and attunement play a critical role in Olivia Webb’s PhD project at AUT University where her art practice engages participants and diverse communities in music and song. For these projects Webb draws from her experience as a trained choral singer and performance artist and asks how listening is translatable across different cultural groups. These practice-led methodologies, based on ideas of participation, actively amend and redirect her projects.

http://www.performance-research.org/past-issue-detail.php?issue_id=81

Silence and Alterity in a Recitation of the Qur’an

Christopher Braddock

1. 22 – 29

PERFORMANCE RESEARCH

VOLUME 20 ISSUE 5

On Repetition 

Issue editors: Eirini Kartsaki and Theron Schmidt

ISSN: 1352-8165 (2015) 20:5