Tina Havelock Stevens
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artist overview
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Selected Artworks
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Exhibitions
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News
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TINA HAVELOCK STEVENS
ARTSPACE AND ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES CO-COMISSION SOLO EXHIBITION: !! July 25, 2025We are delighted to share that Tina Havelock Stevens has been selected for the second annual co-commission by the Art Gallery of New South Wales...Read more -
TINA HAVELOCK STEVENS
"CRASH, BANG", Grace Cossington Smith Gallery June 25, 2025Tina Havelock Stevens presents in her upcoming solo exhibition 'CRASH, BANG' at the Grace Cossington Smith Gallery. Presented by 3:33 Art Projects and Young Curators...Read more
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BIOGRAPHY
TINA HAVELOCK STEVENSTina Havelock Stevens, (she/her) lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
Tina Havelock Stevens’ practice explores the ambiguities of human nature through moving image, still image, improvisational performance, sound, archives, mixed media, social engagement, public art and text. Her sturdy experience in post punk bands and as an observational documentary film maker collide and mix, to animate an experience of the world that is attuned to emotional responses that present as intimate, transcendent, immersive art experiences drawing connections between histories and loaded sites whilst revealing atmospheres, sociological, environmental and elemental space.
Havelock Stevens is the recipient of the prestigious 65th Blake Prize (2018) and the 55th Fisher Ghost Prize (2017) and has been a finalist in many prizes such as the Hazlehurst Art on Paper Award (2023) and Mosman art Prize (2024). She is a 2024 Studio resident at Artspace .
Recent works include Sonic Luminescence, an ever-evolving large scale sound and light installation located in the underground pedestrian tunnel at the new Metro Martin Place, Sydney (2024), SHOCKUMENTARY (after Klein), a sculptural installation at Cassandra Bird Gallery ( 2024) and Sydenham International (2023), a solo project show of archival prints Keeper of Time at Dominik Mersch Gallery, and a 32 channel immersive sound installation for Sydney Football Stadium as part of the permanent Public Art program (2022). Havelock Stevens also had a survey show Nature Extemporize at The Substation (2021) and a solo show Thank You for Holding at Carriageworks for Sydney Festival 2021. In 2020 she exhibited in Afterglow Yokohama Triennale, Japan and Hope in the Dark at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne. She had a major solo show at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art for Perth Festival and was featured in The National 2019: New Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney with The Rapids. Other works include a year long collaboration with the Hills District community in Sydney’s North west creating various visual and sonic elements for her extensive Museum of Contemporary Art C3 West project Hasta La Bella Vista Baby which culminated in a multi-artform event (2019)
Havelock Stevens curated for Artbar at the Museum of Contemporary Art (2018) and has delivered various commissions including Submerge, MONA FOMA (2013), Rewind Room,(Performance Space, 2015) THUNDERHEAD at Dark Mofo and Performance Space (2016), BETASHOCKERS, Big Anxiety Festival (UNSW & AGNSW, Sydney, 2017) Beats Of Darkness for the Manila Biennale (Philippines, 2018) and From Impulse to action at Bundanon Art Museum (2022)
She has also exhibited, performed solo, and with collaborators at Volume Festival, Art Gallery of NSW (2024) NAS Gallery (2023) Mudgee Arts Precinct (2023) Wollongong Art Gallery (2022) Casula Powerhouse (2022) Newcastle Art Gallery (2022) CMAG (Canberra, 2021) Ravenswood Womens Arts Prize (2021) MONA FOMA (2020 & 2013), Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020) Darren Knight Gallery (Sydney, 2017) Mill 6 Chat Foundation, Hong Kong (2016) DARK MOFO (2016) Cementa (2015) Performance Space (2015 – 2022) and Bulletspace (NYC, 2014) amongst many other exhibitions and performances nationally and internationally.
She continues to live score her large-scale film THUNDERHEAD (2022- 2016) improvising with long time collaborator Liberty Kerr (The Mumps band co-founder) as well as live performance exclusively. A significant on-going collaboration is with choreographer Jo Lloyd as duo Spirit Level and with ensemble Double Double (Performance Space 2017 & 2019, Ian Potter Museum 2019, Dark Mofo 2020, Dancehouse 2022, Finalists 3 x Green Room Awards 2023).
Havelock Stevens is currently on the MCA Artist Advisory Group. Her work has been featured on ABC Radio’s Arts and Books shows, ABC TV News Breakfast and in publications such as The Saturday Paper, Sydney Morning Herald, RealTime, Running Dog, Artlink, Art Almanac, Artshub, and in Art Collector ’s Top Fifty Artists (2017 & 2020), as well as feature articles on her art drumming practice in magazines Tom Tom, 2016 (US) and Drumscene, 2018 (AU).
Her work is in the collections of Artbank, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Newcastle Art Gallery, Macquarie Group Collection and numerous private collections.
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artist's cv
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MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
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THANK YOU FOR HOLDING
SYDNEY FESTIVAL, CARRIAGEWORKS, SYDNEY 6-24 JANUARY 2021Thank You For Holding is a new single-channel video installation from Blake Prize winning artist Tina Havelock Stevens as part of Sydney Festival 2021.
Tina Havelock Stevens drums on a raised platform – a raft drawn from pillar to post by her co-performer, Ivey Wawn. Adrift on land, the two performers navigate the rhythms of uncertainty and the chaos of loss and change.
Tina Havelock Stevens conceived Thank You for Holding amidst the relentless tides of anxiety that characterised 2020. Performed in The Clothing Store at Carriageworks last August, her work frames this moment through a filter of timelessness, uncertainty, and hope. As audiences disperse and disassemble for collective safety in a pandemic, the band plays on, solo.
Improvised and urgent, her drumming score reverberates off the architecture, creating a sonic sense of place. Presented as a non-linear performance video, it asserts the extremities of the present as she tunes into the frequencies of time. Reflecting on the power and precarity of human existence, her drumming is a ritual action that ebbs and flows as much as a river, as much as life itself.
Tina Havelock Stevens explores the ambiguities of human nature predominantly through film, performance and installation. Responding to personal narratives, the artist’s work speaks to fragility and survival by drawing connections between historically loaded sites and emotional spaces.
Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
Producer, Artist, Performer: Tina Havelock Stevens
Co-performer: Ivey Wawn
Co-Director, Director of Photography: Jackie Wolf
Editor: Kathy Drayton
Sound Mix: Bob Scott
Sound Recordist: Matt Syres
Artist Assistant: Anny Mokotow
Camera Assistant, Stills: Bronwyn Rennex
Colourist: Dwaine Hyde
Thank You: Glenn Thompson -
THUNDERHEAD
PERTH FESTIVAL, PERTH INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, PERTH 9 February - 19 April 2020Presented in association with Perth Festival
Sydney-based Tina Havelock Stevens has emerged as a leading figure in contemporary Australian video and performance. Her background as a documentary filmmaker and drummer from the post-punk music scene has a direct influence on her practice where she works predominantly in video, music, sound, experimental documentary and performance.
Havelock Stevens’ moving image works reference the ambiguous and contradictory aspects of human nature, she locates spaces where portraiture, autobiography and the restlessness of humanity reside. Depicting landscapes and dwelling on sites that are often empty or abandoned, her sensibilities as a film-maker and a musician create suspended moments that speak of survival and fragility and draw connections between environmental and emotional spaces. This exhibition offers a series of video works accompanied by improvised sound scores – sometimes recorded, sometimes performed live. Visceral and immersive, her installations act as a channel for emotions and histories that reside in built and natural landscapes. -
HASTA LA BELLA VISTA BABY
C3 WEST PROJECT, MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, SYDNEY 30 November 2019A visual and sonic portrait of the communities around the Hills Shire.
Artist Tina Havelock Stevens brought Bella Vista and Hills Shire locals together for a unique after-dark celebration of the area’s diversity and creativity. The artist spent one year collaborating with the community to craft this multi-artform event, paying homage to a rapidly changing suburb through film, art, dance, live music, food, a talk show and more.
Darug artist Leanne Watson’s images of the totemic long-necked turtle, along with words by local writers about the places of Bella Vista, were emblazoned in large-scale posters on the station’s hoardings. On one stage, Havelock Stevens premiered her film Bollywood Bella Vista (2019) of Jinnie De’s local Bollywood group dancing through the streets of Bella Vista. The film was accompanied by live performances by drummers and guitarists from the area. Audiences were invited to join the Bollywood group in participatory dances and watch displays by the Hills Athletic Fencing Club. On a smaller stage, there was a television-style talk show in which local residents were interviewed about their opinions on, and aspirations for, the area. The experience incorporated videos from Havelock Stevens’ talk show residency at the shopping centre Norwest Marketown, filmed in October.
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THE OUTSIDE IS THE INSIDE
ARTSPACE, SYDNEY 30 August – 23 September 2018Here we have a film about a crowd. An ever-evolving and growing crowd outside a one-off intimate concert with The Rolling Stones that took place in February 2003 at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. Fifteen years ago. There were 2200 fans inside and many outside having their own authentic experience.
This is a portrait soaked in international rock and roll legend with a sense of Sydney locality. These archives are records of memory and a little self-referential. We see a past version of Sydney, a time without smartphones. There’s a different sort of presence. A sense of freedom.
Documentary lives on an elastic spectrum. I’m looking at the past in order to make sense of this future. I like to improvise, for things to unfold, to enjoy a sense of the new. I make films like I play the drums. I’ve always liked the fly on the wall approach and to respond to events in the real world no matter how unreal it seems.
- Tina Havelock Stevens
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AVAILABLE WORKS
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