Through the orchestration of gestures and movement, along with a spectrum of flashes of colour, Sriwhana Spong’s Beach Study (2012) explores memory, instability, and the line between public and private. Using 16mm film and colour filters, Beach Study was filmed at a secluded bay on Waiheke Island, a landmark within the artist’s childhood memoryscape which is now rendered difficult to access due to part of the land being privately owned. The work was informed by a series of negotiations—with land that straddles both public and private space, only accessible by boat at low tide, and with the muscle memory of the artist’s own body. Drawing on her experiences of this location as both a child and an adult (and trained dancer), the artist’s encounters with this place are translated into movement through a series of small choreographies.

Based in London, Spong received a Master of Fine Art from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 2015 and a Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of Auckland: Waipapa Taumata Rau in 2021. The relationship between the body, sound and language sits at the heart of her practice which spans moving image, performance, sculpture and painting. Spong’s work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally, with recent projects including HA HA HA, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2026); 18th Lyon Biennale—Contemporary Art (2026); Seeing in the Dark, Busan Biennale (2024); and the 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022). Spong was a finalist in the Walters Prize, Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading contemporary art award, in 2012 and 2021.