Sam Melser

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For me installations are an extension of painting which is a type of curatorial practice. Curating is about oscillating between publics and artists, it’s about defending an ethos of social justice and giving voice and place to artists. All the academic, analytical and outreach work I have been engaged in over the years - be that working as a cultural mediator for artist Anselm Kiefer, as an assistant for Jeff Koons, as a creativity facilitator or as an art collection guide at the University of Auckland – all these roles have meant I have always been drawn to create relationships.

A natural extension out of the rectangle picture plane, my contemporary installation practice is about building context. Collections, series, arrangements, juxtapositions and associations come together and align in an organic network of anthropoetics where the logis, the scientific rationalisation of the Human body, and its practices, are reversed. Although there is method to the madness, my method is permanently distracted and confused. Realms of nature clash with culture in an attempt to identify patterns, rhythms and connections between things, representations and ideas. Archival elements but also things that have escaped classification merge into a post-humanist mind map or detective story whose ambition is to celebrate diverse origin and identity scenarios and stories.     

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