Today, we are hūmenga, wandering sea anemones…

Nau mai, haere mai, welcome to this interactive costume workshop with Louie Neale. This afternoon session will explore queer clothing and body-moving for people from any background and experience. We will experiment with new possibilities of what we can wear and how that makes us feel and act differently, together.

We can drift in the sea like hūmenga, wandering sea anemones, letting the currents help us decide our routes. Let’s attach to a rock, alongside friends, have a moment of clarity - being grounded in our bodies, before floating away again, now more aware of how we wrap ourselves in clothing every day.

For this workshop, please bring a piece of clothing that you like to wear that you don’t mind other people touching (with care). Light kai and tea will also be provided and a cash koha is appreciated but not required.

About the artist:
Louie Neale’s costume and performance art practice stem from personal desires of dressing up, and a sensitivity to meticulously made objects that draw people together. Using second-hand materials, and blending conventional and experimental techniques, Louie’s garments reference real clothing but come from a fluid, adaptive mindset. They aim to subvert the logics placed on people’s bodies today such as gender and movement, while also creating new logics inspired by the world building of marginalised communities. Since returning to Aotearoa from Berlin in 2017, Louie’s work featured at Performance Art Week Aotearoa (2018), Shared Lines: Kaikōura Arts Festival (2019), and Home Videos presented by CIRCUIT (2019).

Check out some of their work here:
www.instagram.com/louiemole
www.performanceartweekaotearoa.com/jellyfish-do-return-gallery/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zYf53v4MGk