With the ability to transcend all social boundaries, Janet Lilo provides a voice to otherwise silent communities.

Since graduating from Auckland University of Technology with a Master of Art and Design in Visual Arts in 2006, Janet’s career has been incredibly vibrant. In 2008 she was the New Zealand delegate to the 10th Pacific Art Festival in America Samoa. Shortly after, in 2011 Janet was the recipient of the Creative New Zealand Contemporary Pacific Art Award. A diverse career including residencies and exhibiting in both group and solo shows has resulted in both a national and international presence for this community centric

A commitment to collaboration as a model for working with communities has enabled Janet to re-present genuine first hand encounters. Janet’s early work was interested in the documentation of our cultural languages. This can be seen in Whipping Boy 2006, where through video drawing Janet explored the trend of creating cracking noises with a whipping motion using a large piece of fabric. Top 16 2007-2008 included this exploration of our social landscapes, through a multilayered installation.  Retrospectively these works now act as valuable social archives. More recently, public spaces feature as transitional sites of conversation. The work subsequently becomes a practice of sharing diverse interactions with audiences through the reinstallation of space.

 

The Right of Way was Janet’s solo show at Artspace at the 2013 5^th Auckland Triennial curated by Hou Hanru. Reflecting on her immediate surroundings, the Audience becomes privy to the multicultural community. The multi layered installation included film, photography, objects and sound. Headphones lay on orange cones placed around the gallery, you can hear different languages around her house, the neighbours chatting whilst listening to Spawnbrezzy and Ria’s track. These small every day gestures the allow Lilo’s work to evoke a strong sense of familiarity from the viewer while entice the viewer to keep searching for connections between themselves and the work. Lilo has a strong social practice where building relationships between herself and the community is just as important as the work she makes. The constructed images used for the large scale photo installation included imagery of CRT screens, a trailer, a corrugated iron fence with graffiti on it and a young Polynesian male. Through this alteration Lilo has created a potential space for dialogue concerning representation, class, home, space, race and place that are not set out to victimize or villainize anyone. The space allows Lilo to question her own perception of the place she is from and how that perception has changed over time.

Janet has exhibited in a number of group and solo exhibitions including:Shout Whisper Wail! The 2017 Chartwell Show, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2017; Status Update, Te Uru Waitakere Gallery, 2016; Hit Me With Your Best Shot (commissioned by The Physics Room) for Christchurch and Wellington City Gallery, 2013; Right of Way for the Fifth Auckland Triennial at Artspace, 2013; In Spite of Ourselves: Approaching Documentary; Contact, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2012; Home AKL, Auckland Art Gallery, 2012; Identi-tee video, Auckland War Memorial Museum, 2012; Residents in Residence, Lopdell House (Offsite New Lynn) 2013; Auckland, Identi-tee film, Tamaki gallery, Auckland War Memorial Museum 2012; As well a number of residencies including  Massey University, Wellington, 2012; Residency, Tjibaou Cultural Center, Noumea, New Caledonia, 2011; Residency, Sapporo (S-AIR) Hokkaido, Japan, 2009.