Image: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth
The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre and Perimeter Editions have announced the Ngāmotu launch of ‘Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound’. The event is scheduled for Saturday 10 October 2026, from 3:00pm to 5:00pm, at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, and is free. The afternoon will include sound, moving image, readings and conversation.
The programme includes a screening of Len Lye’s ‘Swinging the Lambeth Walk’ and a reading of his ‘Sense Days’ by Roger Horrocks, alongside contributions by Rachel Shearer and Janine Randerson and a reading of Gascia Ouzounian’s ‘Counterlistening’.
Anna Briers and Lleah Smith will discuss what sound can do, exploring it as material, sensation, politics and a way of knowing.
The formal programme will close with an audio playback of Mia Salsjö’s ‘A Score for the Len Lye Centre’, performed by musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Edited by Anna Briers, ‘Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound’ explores sound as a medium through deep listening to audible currents, felt vibrations, sirens and noise, connecting those practices to collective attunement, knowledge building and critical engagement with a planet in crisis.
Catalysed by a two-part exhibition curated for the Len Lye Centre’s tenth anniversary, the publication places Len Lye in dialogue with major contemporary artists from Aotearoa and abroad. Its subjects include sound installations, resonant objects, graphic scores, visual music, kinetic sculptures, field recordings, experimental films, musical composition, choreography and broader sonic artefacts.
The publication features work by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Yuko Mohri, Mel O’Callaghan and Aura Satz.
