Peter Booth

Nadia Lee Cohen is arguably the art ‘it girl’ of the moment, a multi-hyphenate creative sought after by collectors and fashion brands alike for her unique vision. VAULT spoke to the photographer and filmmaker, whose work holds a mirror to contemporary culture as it unpacks familiar, and unexpected, tropes and clichés.

Taking a deep breath

Tia Ranginui adds her own spin to contentious Māori ‘fairy’ tales.

Art and language

Over a coffee in Darlinghurst on a sunny afternoon, Taweel, who has just returned from a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, spoke to VAULT about the pull of sacred geometry, the importance of creating space for ritual and the stories of migration that are written in the sky.

Force from history

New Zealand artist Fiona Pardington is of Maori (Ngāi Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngāti Kahungunu) and Scottish (Clan Cameron of Erracht) descent. At the heart of her practice is an abiding concern with emotion and affect. A practitioner with over three decades experience as an exhibiting artist, she has explored the ongoing capacities of photography by attending to that which is hidden or unseen in the photograph, as much as what it represents. In the late 1980s she was among a group of women artists who challenged photography’s so- cial documentary aesthetic, prevalent in the previous decade. She went on to focus on the still-life format, recording museum taonga (Māori ancestral treasures) and other historic objects such as hei tiki (greenstone pendants) and the now extinct huia bird. In these works, she brings to a contemporary audience an awareness of traditional and forgotten objects. Pardington is renowned for her ability to breathe life force back into these objects and to raise global awareness around the importance of conservation. She interrogates death and celebrates collecting and preservation.

A new survey exhibition of Andy Warhol’s photography suggests the artist foreshadowed social media as we know it today.

The tyranny of distance has long kept the heady heights of Hollywood A-listers from even the most senior of Australian designers, and yet rising star Bethany Williams has achieved the seemingly insurmountable at an astonishingly young age. From Queensland to Queen Bey, Bethany talks to VAULT about her unique and wonderful world following a year of unprecedented success.

French indie band Phoenix is back with their seventh studio album, Alpha Zulu, and the critics are calling it a return to form. Recorded during lockdown in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, it’s an album that lingers and opens up slowly, ranging from melancholy pop to disco. VAULT spoke to lead singer Thomas Mars about making music in a museum and knowing when a song is finished.