FOLA AKL

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND by Luke George & Daniel Kok
Presented by FOLA - AKL
📸: Jo Caird

Getting the final scrum in position for STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND
📸: Jo Caird

Rochelle Martin before getting in position for STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND
📸: Jo Caird

Petra Ong for STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND
📸: Jo Caird

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND, performance at Auckland Town Hall, Concert Chamber.
📸: Jo Caird

Former Black Ferns Rochelle Martin and Vita Dryden in STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND.
📸: Jo Caird

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND
📸: Jo Caird

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND, Daniel Kok tying up Georgie.

📸: Jo Caird

Still Lives: Auckland, "Georgie" former captain for the Wasps RFC & the Women's English Rugby team getting tied.

📸: Jo Caird

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND 2024, at the beginning.

Photo: Jo Caird

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND 2024, the scrum.

Photo: Jo Caird

And just like that, Still Lives: Auckland is over. Thank you to all of you who attended the show and witnessed this work unravel with us.

Still Lives: Auckland wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of all our artists, players and team behind the scenes working hard to make it all happen. A huge thank you to everyone who worked with us to make this show happen.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND TEAM
Players: Rochelle Martin, Alice Soper, Paea Longopoa, Vita Dryden, Nina Siō-Milne, Samaria Kaipo, Petra Ong & Georgie (Paula George)
Artists: Luke George (Naarm/Melbourne) & Daniel Kok (Singapore/Berlin)
Creative Producers: Nisha Madhan & Julia Croft
Sound Design: Nick Roux
Lead Consultant: Jo Caird
Marketing & Videography: Nahyeon Lee
HOD Production: Hannah Moore
Cultural Consultant: Rosabel Tan & James Nokise
Publicity: 818 Publicity - Bex Martelletti & Chris Hendry
Rigging: Audrey Morgan
Photography (Rehearsal & Performance): Jo Caird
Hero Image Photography: Gregory Lorenzutti
Marketing and Publicity Associate Producer; Sananda Chatterjee
Rehearsal Models: Anna Dawson, Meg Robinson, Diamond Langi, Ma’aola Faasavala, Raven, Laika Rountree, Vena-Rose Lennane, Johanna Cosgrove, Marc Conaco, Bec Jensen, Hazel Oh, Kerianne Sheree.

F.O.L.A. - [AKL] whole heartedly calls for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine. We urge you to attend rallies and protests across the motu and are proud to present work that personifies resistance, resilience, hope and strength. We practise these qualities everyday so that we may stand strong with our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

From the River to the Sea

Mai te Awa ki te Moana

Crouch, bind, set! It's showtime baby! 🪢🤝🏈

Even if you don't have a ticket, come to the show as we do have space for walk-ins. Come early to secure a spot.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND
30 March, 5.30-8PM
Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

Our ticket registrations for STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND are now full, but walk ups are still encouraged! Come by anyway for a chance to experience the work and our ushers will provide updates on how full the venue is throughout the event.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is an all-ages, free, event on this Saturday, 30 March at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall from 5.30PM.

To deepen your experience with the work or to explore about some of the themes, ideas and context check out the research section of our website: https://www.fola.co.nz/still-lives-auckland/

What should you expect as an audience member for Still Lives: Auckland this Saturday?

Still Lives: Auckland is a durational work which will unfold on the floor of the Concert Chamber alongside the audience.

Feel free to roam around the performance area or feel free to settle in, sit down on the floor of the concert chamber and experience it unfolding around you.

Register for your free ticket: https://bit.ly/SLAKLTickets

Photo of former rugby team captain for England, Georgie (Paula George) in rehearsal for Still Lives: Auckland taken by Jo Caird.

"A near spiritual experience today watching the kind of art that moves you in ways you can’t quite find the words to express. In a city where football is a religion it was fitting that art should intersect so powerfully with sport in the Still Lives installation”
- Jill Stark, on Still Lives: Melbourne (2022)

Still Lives: Auckland is on THIS Holy Saturday - Claim your FREE ticket: https://bit.ly/SLAKLTickets

We've just released new tickets as we exceeded our first allocation! Walk-ups will be available, but entry without a ticket will depend on capacity, with ticket holders getting priority.

📸: Jo Caird

Artists Luke George & Daniel Kok speak to the NZ Herald about STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND - on THIS Saturday.

Still lives Auckland connects art and sport - NZ Herald Still Lives, by art duo Daniel Kok from Singapore and Melbournian Luke George, is billed as a site-specific performance installation series aiming to showcase connections between art and sport. Video / NZ Herald

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our final participant is former Rugby team captain for England, “Georgie” (Paula George) who played for her beloved club Wasps for over 14 years and was capped 77 times for England, retiring as the most capped player in the world at that time. 🐝

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our next participant is our youngest player, Samaria Kaito (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri). Samaria plays for the Ponsonby Fillies, the most recent winners of the Coleman Shield.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our next participant is living legend Nina Siō, co-founder (with six others) of the Ponsonby women’s team known as the Fillies in 1986, a powerhouse team who went on to win 86 matches and eight championships. Nina played the 1991 tour and the World Cup team, and now is a mother to three sons and a grandmother of three.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our next participant is the legendary Rochelle Martin MNZM for services to Rugby and Fire and Emergency NZ, former Vice Captain/ Captain of the Black Ferns with a career spanning from 1994 to 2006 winning three world cup titles and player of the year in 1995. Rochelle also made waves in the Fire and Emergency industry, when she was appointed as the Group Manager/ Assistant Commander in September 2021, being the first ever female firefighter to earn the position.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our next participant is Vita Dryden (), former Black Fern (2007, 2009-11, 2013), refill store co-owner and now coaching with the first Coromandel women’s rugby team in decade, the Thames Valley Vixens.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Our next participant is Paea Longopoa (), a rugby player, team manager and mental health worker — supporting people to success in all the fields she applies herself in, all while finishing her Masters about the experiences of q***r Tongan women in Aotearoa. 🇹🇴
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Paea Longopoa is born in Aotearoa and West-Auckland raised. Paea’s parents are Tongan and Catholic, and she attended Catholic Church and School growing up.

Paea comes from a family of men who were all into sports, particularly rugby league but decided to play union instead. She joined Ponsonby rugby club in 1998 and played on and off until she hung up the boots in 2018. She returned in 2019-2020 to manage the women’s team and won the championship in 2020 after 27 years and the girls have continued to win since then. 

She has currently been married for one year now with 2 fur babies living in Grey Lynn and works in mental health in the Construction industry.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. Introducing our first player, the inimitable Alice Soper - rugby player, coach, freelance journalist and staunch advocate for women’s rugby.
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Alice has been playing in Wellington women's rugby teams since she was 13 years old. A loveable loudmouth to her teammates, she continues to use her voice to get women’s sports over the advantage line. Alice lives, plays, writes and coaches women’s rugby in Wainuiomata. If she's not doing any of that, you'll find her having an oh so Wellington beer in her backyard.

STILL LIVES: AUCKLAND is a collaboration with eight female rugby players from all different walks of life in Aotearoa. To help find our players, we worked with the legendary Jo Caird ( ), the first official photographer for the All Blacks, author & advocate for women’s Rugby, as a consultant in this process.
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Jo led the way for females in the world of sports media, photographing several Olympics and Commonwealth games, before then breaking new territory in professional rugby. Establishing the position of Official Photographer with the All Blacks and becoming the first female to cover an All Black Tour.  Her following twenty-year career was always up against a background of challenges in a male dominated rugby media world, such as being the first woman to ever photograph a professional rugby game in South Africa. 

Jo worked with the All Blacks and Black Ferns for almost 20 years, covering 12 All Black Tours, 5 World Cups, several Sevens World Cups and a million rugby games in between.  Her work has been published in many books including players like Dan Carter and Richie McCaw’s autobiographies.  In 2023, Jo has also co-authored several books the most recent being in 2023 with Our GameMakers () celebrating women’s rugby players and how they have built the global game we all see and love today.

STILL LIVES is a durational and site-specific series, with the Auckland version following STILL LIVES presentations in VENICE, SINGAPORE and MELBOURNE. A durational and site-specific performance installation series, artists Luke George (Melbourne) and Daniel Kok (Singapore/Berlin) "capture" (with ropes) a significant moment or movement in relation to its cultural context. The process of tying reveals the social connections and community bonds between bodies.
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In STILL LIVES: MELBOURNE, the artists collaborated with five Australian Rules players to capture a moment in time bound by rope, recreating a spectacular mark from football history, the 2011 AFL Mark of the Year by footy legend and proud Noongar man Andrew Krakouer.

As the mass of spectators gathered in the Great Hall of the NGV to witness the process of creating this suspended tableau, the players were transformed into living sculptures. The connection between art and sport, the players and the game they love, and the powerful influence of football becomes an object of interrogation. Urgent issues, such as sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia within sporting culture are revealed through the knotty negotiation between bodies.

STILL LIVES is a durational and site-specific series, with the Auckland version following STILL LIVES presentations in VENICE, SINGAPORE and MELBOURNE. A durational and site-specific performance installation series, artists Luke George (Melbourne) and Daniel Kok (Singapore/Berlin) "capture" (with ropes) a significant moment or movement in relation to its cultural context. The process of tying reveals the social connections and community bonds between bodies.

In this series, we introduce past iterations of STILL LIVES, next introducing STILL LIVES: MARINA BAY at Cé La Vi 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands for Singapore Festival of Arts (2023)
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Acclaimed singer Nathan Hartono and influential entrepreneur Grace Kee were suspended in STILL LIVES: MARINA BAY by Daniel Kok and Luke George at Cé La Vi. With its impressive panoramic view atop the Marina Bay Sands, the venue was itself a testament to Singapore’s wealth and material success. Nathan and Grace, as both high net worth individuals and social influencers, were subjects who were bound and eventually suspended against the backdrop of Singapore’s glittering cityscape, inspiring reflections on what and how we possess teasing out nuanced ways of discussing Singapore’s relationship with money.