Wellington-based emerging artist Justin Jade Morgan has just been selected to exhibit at the 3rd 'Arhipelag' International Contemporary Arts Festival between Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and Gorica (Italy).
Arhipelag, the international festival of contemporary art, will come to life between Nova Gorica and Gorizia for the third time at the end of September 2008. Arhipelag is a festival that encourages experimental and adventurous creation at the meeting point of various artistic expressions, such as the performing arts, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, video, new media and installation.
Morgan will be exhibiting as well as presenting a talk about several of the works from his on going project entitled ‘Information Recorded’ at the Nova Gorica Regional Museum (Goriški muzej) inside the Kromberk castle and at Vila Bartolomei.
Information Recorded is a site-specific project that amasses information to the point of confusion. Morgan’s project incorporates photography drawing, audio, data and sample collecting methods usually associated to archaeology and forensic science.
Arhipelag originated in 2005 through the formation of a think tank that consisted of members linked with KUD Limb (Cultural and Artistic Association Limb) from Nova Gorica. The festival was conceived as an attempt to take an active part in political and artistic discourse and connect artists from both the Goricas (Nova Gorica - Gorizia) who draw into their company artists from other countries with the purpose of overcoming the borders in every aspect. Similar interventions date back to the sixties, when the Associazione Provinciale Artisti (Provincial Artists Association) and later the group 2xGO organized and crossed borders to exhibit and develop dialogue and confrontation in the then culturally and politically divided environment of Italy and Yugoslavia. It is said that Arhipelag is where the experiment is born and where the arts converge on a group of islands that are in a constant state of change in their journey to give reality a meaning.
Justin Jade Morgan is a graduate of the Auckland University of Technology and the Western Institute of Technology, New Plymouth. Morgan has been exhibiting his work for the last ten years and has been involved in community art projects through out New Zealand over the past six years including the formation of the JustArt organisation that has curated, supported and sponsored well over 100 artists and organisations. He is a team member of the international new media festival Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand and has recently had solo shows at the Lesley Kreisler Gallery (New Plymouth) and Lopdell House Gallery (Auckland). Morgan was also the 2007 artist resident at the Western Institute of Technology. He is currently employed as an extramural tutor at the Learning Connexion in Island Bay, Wellington.
