Awakening to Timelessness

An evening of film, poetry and music, inspired by Titirangi and its rainforest surrounds.

Ron Riddell will perform a series of poems accompanied on cello and oboe by Raeul Pierard and Stuart Lithgow. In the foreword to his book, "Awakening to Timelessness", he talks of the beauty to be found in Titirangi as "a clarion call to respond creatively to the song of place…the song of the bush, birds, streams and sea: their song, call, poetry."

Saray Torres De Riddell will perform Spanish versions of selected works.

Gus Simonovic will present a series of his works in an improvised dialogue with the musicians. In his own words: "For a poet, any language is just one big playground. Poetry exists somewhere in the illusive space between words and music. Trying to fit visible and invisible, shapes and figures, radiances and feelings into words is essentially an impossible task and a thrilling challenge."

Martin Sercombe will screen the following cinematic collaborations with the poets:

Find Me a Word HD Video 5 mins 2017
This cinepoem is a collaboration with performance poet Gus Simonovic and composer Sylvi MacCormac. It was shot along the Laingholm Estuary and around the South Titirangi peninsula in the winter of 2017. It explores ways in which kinetic text can be ‘absorbed’ into the details of the landscape it refers to, rendering the two elements as a symbiotic whole.

Storytelling 9 mins HD Video 2019
Two poems by Gus Simonovic challenge our familiar perceptions of the words and objects which surround us. Martin Sercombe undertakes a parallel, visual exploration of a domestic environment, using a macro lens to transform everyday objects into odd and unfamiliar states.

This is the Garden 3 mins HD Video 2019
A visual response to the e.e. cummings poem of the same name, about the cycle of life and death. The macro imagery is set in a suburban garden in Titirangi.

Songs 10 mins 25 secs UHD Video 2022
Songs transforms five short poems from e.e. cummings’ first three volumes: Tulips and Chimneys, & and XLI Poems using painterly AI generated still imagery.

Awakening to Timelessness UHD Video 6 mins 2024
A collaboration with Ron Riddell and composer Raeul Pierard. It features four poems by Riddell, drawn from his book of the same name, inspired by Titirangi and the Waitakeres. Premiere screening.

The evening will close with a raffle. One free raffle ticket per visitor. Prizes include a fine art photography book and poetry books by the artists.