EDIT: Notes from this talk can be read here.
Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) discusses aspects of her Pyramid Club artist residency, performs solo and in collaboration with Chris O'Connor.
For her residency, Ruby is taking inspiration from a little known art experiment undertaken at London's St Martin's School of Art in 1969. This experiment, called 'the Locked Room', required sculpture students to be kept in isolation while they worked, and prohibited them from keeping or sharing whatever they made. Ruby's two week Pyramid Club residency will be conducted under similar restrictions. At this artist talk Ruby will share insights gained during the process.
Ruby Solly is a Kai Tahu musician, taonga puoro practitioner, music therapist and writer living in Wellington. She has played with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Whirimako Black, Trinity Roots, and The New Zealand String Quartet as both a cellist, and a player of traditional Māori instruments (ngā taonga puoro). She has also worked as a session musician and recording artist with groups such as So Laid Back Country China, Jhan Lindsay, Strowlini Orchestra, and many other artists around Wellington. In 2019 she completed a Masters thesis in the therapeutic potential of taonga puoro in mental health based music therapy, while working in schools, hospitals, prisons and with private clients from iwi around the motu. She also has experience as a composer with pieces commissioned by the New Zealand School of Music in association with SOUNZ, as well as in film work in association with Someday Stories, and the Goethe Institute with Wellington Film Society.
Chris O'Connor is one of NZ's great creative percussionists, a sought-after collaborator across the musical spectrum. He is currently studying music therapy at Victoria University.
