Sriwhana Spong’s The painter-tailor – Live performance July 3

Core members of South Auckland’s own contemporary DIY/punk music group Te Coolies, Tina Pihema and Sjonel Timu, perform a twenty-minute improvisation of Sriwhana Spong’s ‘personal orchestra’, a key component of Spong’s Walters Prize exhibition, The Painter-tailor 2019-2021.

Tina Pihema (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Samoa) and Sjionel Timu (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne, Ngāpuhi) are members of pioneering seminal punk band ‘The Coolies’. They have been creating sonic architecture for over 20 years and are delighted to support the activation of Sriwhana Spong’s Painter-Tailor.

Made over the last few years, these instruments were inspired by the Indonesian gamelan: a unique orchestra whose pitch traditionally differed from village to village in Bali.

Spong is compelled by the notion of a place and its community being represented by its own specifically tuned orchestra. Each of her instruments is named after a friend or collaborator, and will be activated across the period of the exhibition.

Image credit:

Opening performance by Te Coolies (Stefan Neville, Tina Pīhema, Sjionel Timu). A hook but no fish, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2018). Photo: Sam Hartnett.