Episode 89: Zack Steiner-Fox in conversation with Robbie Handcock

CIRCUIT CAST

Popular Glory: Contemporary Queerness and the Moving Image is a new four-part podcast series hosted by Pōneke artist Robbie Handcock, in which he interviews a range of Aotearoa artists working in moving image who employ queerness as identity, content and strategy. In Episode One, we speak to Berlin based Tāmaki Makaurau artist ZK Steiner-Fox. Here ZK speaks about their move from installation and sculpture through to video and performance, their experience at the Vada Artists Residency in California, and their reference to genre film as a departure point for exploring queer identities. Leading from their work Popular Glory, which came out of the residency, we discuss how the horror movie format—with all its tensions as well as its tropes—is used in ZK’s work to examine the impact of queer coding, classic Hollywood morality and the everyday terror of navigating contemporary media. ZK has previously shown at Artspace Aotearoa, Window Gallery, play_station, and was part of CIRCUIT’s presentation at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2020. Robbie Handcock is a Pōneke based artist and facilitator at play_station gallery. He is also co-founder of the vlog Glad We Did That with co-host and fellow artist Elisabeth Pointon.