The Engine Room

Amazonia: Sapara Kaku
(Amazonia, The Sapara Universe)
Ruben Dario Diaz Chavez (Ecuador)

20th - 27th August 2025
12 – 4pm Monday – Saturday
Exhibition Opening event: 5:00pm Tuesday 19th August
Floor Talk event: 5:00pm Thursday 21st August

The Engine Room
Block 1 Wallace Street,
Massey University
Mount Cook, Wellington

Please join us to celebrate the exhibition opening of our current Te Whare Hera resident artist, Ruben Dario Diaz Chavez. Ruben is a researcher, curator and cultural manager whose career spans Latin America, Europe and Asia. His research touches on themes as diverse as quantum realism, independent art spaces in Latin America and Sapara Indigenous culture in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

He is the founder, director and curator of No Lugar – Arte Contemporaneo and Ripanu, both platforms for experimental and socially engaged art practices in Ecuador. His ongoing collaboration with Sapara leader Gloria Ushigua reflects his commitment to Indigenous rights, environmental justice and epistemic diversity, values he is eager to explore further during his time in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The focus of his residency is to develop a series of works exploring relationships with Indigenous peoples, acts of resistance and processes of cultural conciliation through the lens of contemporary art.

50 years of Photography at Massey. Analogue (n.) - on at Massey's on-campus Engine Room gallery (Te Whanganui-a-Tara) until August 9. 12.00-4.00 pm Monday to Saturday

Analogue (n.) – Photography exhibition Photography exhibition at the Engine Room gallery marks 50th anniversary of Photography at Massey.

Te Whare Hēra International Artist Residency is currently hosting two contributors to the Flat Earthers project: Charlotte Parallel, who lives in Port Chalmers, Ōtepoti Dunedin, and Rachel Leah Cohn, who lives in Muncie Indiana. They first met during a Zoom studio visit in October 2020 to talk about their shared interest in radio and how sound travels through and around the Earth. Since that time, they have met regularly to share experiments as they learn about the hobby of amateur radio, including Rachel’s attempts to send paintings through the international airwaves using SSTV. Slow scan television is a transmission method where images are converted and sent over voice frequencies on the radio. The images seen here are examples of transmitted painting, including a photograph of a campfire painted by Rachel that was sent via radio.
From the 10 - 15 July, Rachel and Charlotte are on an ‘SSTV residency’. KC1GVN to ZL4CH. To generate the material for each day they send each other deep listening exercises where each exercise is the prompt for an image of some kind. The image is then encoded into audio and transmitted over a local amateur radio frequency where the radio waves become the active medium of their conversation. For the Flat Earthers exhibition, Charlotte and Rachel will make QSL postcards and a slow scan conversation loop.
You can follow their residency on Instagram:

The Flat Earthers exhibition runs 13th - 30th July 2021 at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Toi Rāuwharangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University. https://theengineroom.org.nz/current/. Follow the instagram accounts of everyone involved below!
.kathy

'Quicken' opening CANCELLED, exhibition postponed.
Due to concerns about the spread of the Covid 19 Corona virus, the Engine Room will be closed until the situation changes.

Reminder: fantastic free lecture tomorrow night at Massey featuring NYC-based poet and essayist Wendy S. Walters. Let's welcome her with enthusiasm to Aotearoa!

Far Afield: A public lecture by Wendy S. Walters — NonfictioNOW 2020: Wellington, New Zealand Wendy S. Walters will unrest your moral imagination with her public lecture on intersections between writing and design and the concept of the post-industrial city. Walters' is widely known for her critically acclaimed collection of essays Multiply/Divide which uncovers the reasoning behind social

'a sum less than its parts' closes on the 18th of October, swing by 12-4pm this week to check it out! This is the last show of the year before Massey Exposure 2019.