"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
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"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
Brett Graham's exhibition Wastelands opened at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in June 2025. Featuring a monumental sculpture of the same name that was commissioned for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, the haunting installation is expanded to include a new multi-channel video work, titled Whangamārino (2025). Re-working footage shot by news company Aukaha of a 2024 fire in the Whangamārino wetlands, Graham's new work adds layers of animation, personal history, and an ominous soundtrack.
The resulting installation addresses both the history of colonial exploitation and our contemporary ecological crisis. Over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land were confiscated by the colonial government following the Waste Lands Act (1858), the Waikato War (1863–64), and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863), with devastating consequences for tangata whenua and te taio. In this exhibition, Graham powerfully addresses the resulting degradation of the Waikato River and its surrounding wetlands, a precious resource and taonga for his iwi.
In this kōrero with Kathryn Graham, Brett discusses Wastelands, his earlier work Tai Moana Tai Tangata (2020), and presenting Wastelands at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
CIRCUIT CAST
"Sometimes even a cup of tea can fail"
In a hyper-connected world, Samantha Cheng's durational performances examine failure as a generative space. In the final episode of Comic Release Joe Jowitt talks to Samantha about time, labour and the body.
00:00: Introduction to Samantha's practice by Joe Jowitt
1.50: Joe - "There seems to be a real tension between comedy and exhaustion in your practice. Could you start by describing what draws you to humour as a material or method?" Samantha describes her masters research on failure.
3.30: Humour as a personal practice. Samantha asks Joe "What do you find funny? Where does your humour come from?"
5.00: On making the video Happy Ever After (2021). The classic film trope of a happy ending. The repetitive gesture in Happy Ever After.
7.10: Joe compares the work to classic cinema devices "the fall, the loop, the failed gag". He compares the work to Bas Jan Ader and the slapstick tradition of Buster Keaton
8:13: The 'failure of narrative' in the work. Samantha describes watching it with an audience. Joe on the Sisyphean metaphor of human striving but never getting there.
9:20: Failure as a response to the problem of a highly optimised society. On failure, paranoia and contemporary digital surveillance and data harvesting.
12:00: Humour and abstract art. Inefficiency in Samantha's practice. Samantha - "It's not the really big failures that I'm interested in... smaller ones have more of a disruptive agency".
13:00: On the work Take a 10 (2022), work and labour. Time as money. "...making that work allowed me to kind of view what 10 minutes actually really felt like. 'Cause in a break, 10 minutes goes by so quickly doing that video felt like doing it for hours".
15:30: How does the absurd fit in your practice? Being "in on the joke".
16:30 Western academic descriptions of humour versus origins of Samantha's own humour. Family.
17:10: How important is it to perform the work yourself?
18:10: Social media as influence
19:30: On work Steep dreams (2024).
21:00: Humour found in everyday life. How do you write about the big subjects? "You can start by writing about the small ones and then maybe we'll get there".
22:00: On Passengers (2023) public event, produced for Chez Derriere.
23:30: Mass/Mess project at Window Gallery.
24:24: On spontaneity and not over-working humour. Working in a space where humour is not welcome.
26:00: What does it offer the viewer to ask questions about boundaries?
26:43: Anti-ICE protests in USA using costumes. "Autocrats hate humour".
27:30: Is humour a way to stay present in the world? Weaponisation of humour. Individual sense of what's funny versus other people's interpretation.
28:58: END
