Small Measures (Hannah Joynt and Jane Venis) Flag Plant 2020. Still. HD video, 5.00min. Courtesy of the artists
Flag Plant
Small Measures (Hannah Joynt and Jane Venis)
22 July 2023 - 1 October 2023
A REAR WINDOW PROJECT
[screens 24/7 at 40 Moray Place]
In 2019, Small Measures spent time in Portugal as part of the Buinho Creative Hub Residency. In the historic town of Messejana, in the Alentejo region of Portugal, they visited an operational bullfighting arena. With improvisation sitting at the core of their collaborative practice, Small Measures were inspired to make a film work in response to this site. Through sound, movement and mark-making, Small Measures responded to the activities that take place within the bullring – offering a small gesture of peace through the planting of an olive branch.
Flag Plant is part of the exhibition Small Measures: Precious and Pathetic which is on at Dunedin Public Art Gallery until 12 November 2023. In Precious and Pathetic, Small Measures uses humour and irony to highlight the absurdity of contemporary life – the overregulation, dysfunction and frustration found in everyday tasks and systems. Located on the Gallery’s first floor, Precious and Pathetic is part of Suite 2023 – a biennial exhibition programme that explores aspects of contemporary art in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Suite 2023 brings together four new solo exhibitions from Kate Fitzharris, Madison Kelly (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Pākehā), Motoko Kikkawa, and Small Measures.
Working across video, performance, sculpture, painting, drawing and music, Hannah Joynt and Jane Venis work collaboratively under the name Small Measures. Joynt is a contemporary drawing and painting practitioner who works in a range of media, processes, and scales. Venis is a multi-media musician, performance artist and sculptor. Small Measures took part in the Buinho Creative Hub Residency in Portugal in 2019, their installation Dual was shown at Czong Institute of Contemporary Art (CICA) in South Korea in 2020 as part of the Contemporary Art Solo Show Series and they were included in the subsequent publication CICA Art Now 2020. Small Measures made their first short film Flag Plant in 2019, which was selected for the Bomb Factory Artist’s Film Festival in London in 2021.