HOURS
Thursday 11-5
Friday 11-5
Saturday 11-4

Slump Bowl Hole 

Orissa Keane 

07.05.26 - 30.05.26 

The works in Slump bowl hole have been developed from the starting point of a floor in the central room in Orissa’s grandmother’s house in Bangkok, Thailand. This floor has been sinking over several years due to unknown structural damage below. 

Moving by necessity around this point daily, physically moving her body to walk the perimeter of this unsound dip in the floor, Orissa began to imagine the recess as an entity. The slump became a presence that she and her cousins live with rather than any kind of absence, walking around it as with an obstacle rather than through as with a cavity, a hole. 

Taking pictures of what she began to refer to as ‘the hole in the floor’ to show people, she found these photos would never convey the contour of the slump truly; too much reflection on the dark varnished hardwood, always the wrong angle and position of her body with the camera. Then she tried many other ways to document the floor. Slump bowl hole reveals a selection of her attempts at this.

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Orissa is an artist and writer who has recently returned to Ōtautahi after living in her family home in Bangkok for some months. Her time there learning Thai has spurred on several projects orbiting family histories, lore and archives. She is interested in pulling at the absurdities in language, sound and architecture and how they can be representative of our relationships with surrounding objects and space. Orissa studied sculpture at University of Canterbury Ilam School of Fine Arts and graduated in 2019.

Poster design by Harris Wilson 

Sponsored by Parrotdog beer 

With support from Creative New Zealand

Upcoming: When the street widens - Phoebe Laird