A bootleg is something illegally made, copied or distributed. The term originated in the prohibition practice of hiding illicit liquor in your boot, next to your leg. But it's more familiar in recent decades in regards to music and film.
Bootleg is the name of an exhibition by Ngāruwāhia visual and sound artist Abigail Aroha Jensen with Tamsen Hopkinson at Ōtautahi Christchurch gallery The Physics Room. Bootleg - the gallery say - deals with how theft relates to the land and materials abandoned to it. And in the case of Jensen's work materials used range from old baby toys and artificial muka fibre to boxes of hair dye. Bootleg is on at The Physics Room until the 24th of August.
Meanwhile Abigail has recently been awarded a much sought-after contemporary art residency. In October she will travel to South London to spend three months with the organisation and gallery Gasworks. They give artists from outside the UK studio time in the English capital.
Fair to day Abigail Aroha Jensen often pushes the conventions in use of any media or practice she works with. At the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt recently she installed vacuum-packed objects in the museum's elevator.
For the celebrated album Tūpiki, each of 12 tracks is 3 minutes and 33 seconds long, representing the story of Māui's spiritual journey ascending the 12 steps of heaven. Jensen plays everything from shells and taonga puoro to cello and water gongs.
We welcome Abigail in the Kirirkiriroa studio to Culture 101.
