5 musical arrangements for 5 rooms

Join us for a dramatic and intimate, musical encounter with Yona Lee’s exhibition An Arrangement for 5 Rooms. With its narratives of life, music and movement from the perspective of a young Korean New Zealand artist, often literally in transit for work, Yona Lee: An Arrangement for 5 Rooms solicits migration stories familiar to many New Zealanders. Inspired by the different movements within the show, cellist Vincent Chen will play 5 different musical arrangements within the 5 different rooms of the exhibition.  

In addition to the two performances, catch Curator, Natasha Conland and Yona Lee in the space from 1pm, discussing the importance of music on the artists’ life and work in her most ambitious solo exhibition to date. 

Yona Lee was born in 1986 in Busan, South Korea. She lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand, and completed MFA at Auckland University Elam School of Fine Arts in 2010. Lee’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2018-2019); City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2018-2019); and Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand (2020).  

Vincent Chen was born and raised in New Zealand with a Taiwanese heritage. He is a devoted cellist and penultimate year engineering student.  Throughout his musical career to date, he has participated in Rutesheim Cello Festival in Germany, as well as performances around New Zealand as a soloist and chamber musician. Vincent is a founding member of his string quartet Viereinigkeit, and will be touring the UK later this year as part of their ROSL Scholarship.

Image courtesy of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.