Exhibition from the Confucius Institute Art Collection

RED by Madeleine Slavick

Artist reception
Thursday 5 March, 5pm
Level 3, Main Library, Kelburn

The exhibition runs from 26 February to 30 June on Level 3 in the main library. A collaboration between the VUW Library and the Confucius Institute, this art space showcases contemporary works that respond creatively to Chinese culture, history and society.

All Welcome

Red is the quintessential Chinese colour - double happiness, the national flag, Chinese New Year, Dream of the Red Chamber. But red is not just one colour - there are as many shades of red as there are ways of looking at them. Madeleine Slavick has lived on the outskirts of China for twenty-five years. She has on occasion ventured inland and brought back photographic memories, many tinged with reds: a shop window in Yunnan, a courtyard in Beijing, worn carpets at a hotel in Xinjiang.

In this exhibition, a suite of eight photographs, entitled RED, is juxtaposed with one of Madeleine's poems, also entitled 'red'. Each line of the poem subtitles one image, as word and image comprehend and comment on each other. Two additional photographs, a faded wall and a hazy lookout, ponder the red dust of history.

Madeleine Slavick was born in the USA and has lived most of her creative life in Hong Kong. She now makes her home in the Wairarapa where she continues her artistic practice. She is the 2015 R.A.K. Mason Writer's Fellow at New Zealand Pacific Studio. A concurrent exhibition of her Hong Kong images, HONG KONG SONG, runs in the Aratoi Museum of Art and History until 10 May.