My throat/a shelter

My throat/a shelter is a new publication by The Physics Room. It developed from the 2023 exhibition, curated by Amy Weng. This book brings the work of Selina Ershadi and James Tapsell-Kururangi together with new writing by Amy Weng, Hana Pera Aoake and Manon Revuelta. Accompanied by stills from Ershadi and Tapsell-Kururangi’s films, My throat/a shelter is an incisive document of this significant moving-image exhibition.

Celebrate the release of this beautiful new pukapuka, My throat/a shelter, with readings from the contributors and some kai. 

Copies can be purchased through our website or in the gallery, and will be available on the night for $30.

HANA PERA AOAKE (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Waikato/Tainui) is an artist and writer, who lives and works in Kawerau. They live beneath Pūtauaki maunga, where they write, read, parent, garden, make books and try to make art. They are currently working on a PhD from AUT. In 2024 they undertook a residency at the Delfina Foundation and will be publishing books in 2025 with Discipline (AU), no more poetry (AU) and Compound Press (NZ).

SELINA ERSHADI is an Iranian-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist working within a lineage of experimental film forms. She holds an MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts and a BA majoring in English Literature from the University of Auckland.

MANON REVUELTA is a poet and arts writer living in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work can be found in Michael Lett Documents, Blue Oyster Art Project Space, and The Art Paper. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, and was awarded the 2019 Biggs Family Prize in Poetry.

JAMES TAPSELL-KURURANGI (Te Arawa, Tainui, Ngāti Porou) is a curator and artist based in Ōtautahi. Recent exhibitions include Indigenous Histories, Museo de Arte de Sāo Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, Sāo Paulo, 2023; The long waves of our ocean, National Library, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 2022; twisting, turning, winding: takatāpui + queer objects, Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2022; and Matarau, City Gallery Wellington, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 2022.

AMY WENG is an independent curator, art writer and editor based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She was the former curator of The Physics Room (2022-24), and has curated projects at Te Tuhi, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, RM, Meanwhile and Window Gallery. She was the organiser of the inaugural Asian Aotearoa Artists Hui (2017) and the founder of Hainamana, a website dedicated to Asian New Zealand contemporary art and culture (2016-2020).