Fiona Amundsen (NZ)

Born 1973, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Lives and works Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Fiona Amundsen is an Aotearoa-New Zealand artist who has exhibited throughout the Asia Pacific region, United States and Europe. She is interested in establishing relationships between specific historical events, the social responsibility of witnessing, and the ethics of image making. In 2019 Fiona was awarded a Fulbright New Zealand Scholar Award enabling her to begin initial research for Coming back to Life (2019 -), a photo-filmic project that explores relationships between Cold War nuclear technologies,
military-capitalism, environmental destruction and spirituality. She has also explored alternative modalities for memorialising stories and experiences associated with the AsiaPacific War (WWII). Her exhibition A Body that Lives (2018) was nominated for the 2020 ‘Walters Prize’. Aspects of this project were further developed for the 2020 Mori Museum (Tokyo)/Tate Modern (London) research project looking at non-western imperialism and the 2021 Tokyo Biennale. Fiona also practices aikidō and was recently awarded her first-degree blackbelt. Aikidō’s focus on harmonising conflict via non-combative methods influences Fiona’s approach to using a camera.