Artist talk with Frances Libeau & Steve Lovett

Newly commissioned for The Changing Room, Frances Libeau's multimedia installation AS LOYAL KIWIS WE CANNOT DESIRE explores the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. Together, Libeau and Lovett will discuss notions of cultural memory production and material histories in relation to the oppositional campaign against the bill.

Following this kōrero, Welby Ings (Professor of Narrative Design, AUT) will present a lecture exploring the human impact of antigay rhetoric surrounding the 1985/6 law reform campaigning.

Light refreshments provided.

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Frances Libeau is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Libeau’s work often explores the hauntological potentialities of found materials and possibilities for queering compositional and archival practices. Recent exhibitions include Lake of Wandering Spirits (Te Tuhi, 2026) and My cruel enemy grazes on my pain and feeds herself (RM Gallery & Project Space, 2024).⁠

Steve Lovett has a multi-decade practice emerging from printerly research. Steve teaches print technologies at Te Waka Tūhura Elam Fine Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Education. Lovett’s studio is centred on collecting and reworking images and texts to develop counter-narratives that critique power. These have taken the form of sound archives, text-based work, photo documentation, collage and most recently, performance. Lovett’s pedagogical research concerns the acquisition of various forms of literacy by ‘first in family’ students transitioning to tertiary study, developing structured approaches to knowledge and skill acquisition relevant to both theoretical learning and practical application.

Welby Ings is a Professor in Narrative Design at AUT. In the 1970s after being expelled from school, he came out as a gay man and became a vocal activist while homosexuality was a crime with a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment. He was arrested several times and fired from jobs because he refused to hide his sexual identity. He has been actively involved in the homosexual law reforms of the 1980s, changes to the Human Rights legislation in the 1990s, and amendments to prostitution legislation in 2003. He is also an award-winning writer and filmmaker whose work often deals with the complexities of being gay. His queer film boy qualified for the 2006 Oscars. In 2001 he was awarded the Prime Minister’s inaugural, Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence and in 2013, the AUT University medal for his contributions to research and education.

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Image: Peter Nowland, used with permission, ca. 1986.