About us
Dr William Franco
Director
William Franco has a B.A. in Fim and Video from California Institute for the Arts, M.F.A. in Installation - Digital Media from Massey University, and a PhD and Graduate Diploma in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Victoria University of Wellington. Since 2007 when he was a Fulbright Fellow, he has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
A Chicano (Zapotec and Mixtec), he is a border crosser, choosing the best form and media to embody his performative ideas. His multi-disciplinary approach grows out his collaboration with the original members of The Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo.
His installations reflect his technical expertise in lighting, audio and video honed through his extensive production experience in film, video, sound and theatrical/dance performances in site-specific, studio and museum settings. He is best known for “The Illustrated Chicano,” his interactive installation on being a Chicano in diaspora, and mounting the HAKO Virtual Projection Mapping Festival during the COVID pandemic.
He has worked as the AV specialist at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, tutor and theatre technician at Victoria University of Wellington, a location sound mixer on independent features and documentaries in Los Angeles, and a customer cabinetmaker in San Diego.
Dr Miki Seifert
Director
Miki Seifert has a PHD from Victoria University of Wellington and a B.A. in French and Political Science from Moravian College. Since 2007, she has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Her body of work ranges from performances, installations and videos with her collaborator William Franco to solo work of mixed media paintings to writing and artbooks. Her movement training (Butoh, contact improvisation, ballet, circus arts and gymnastics) imbues her work with flow, timing, placement, and a balance between the improvised and the choreographed.
Her introduction to installation art was collaborating with David Avalos, Deborah Small and William Franco on the video “Ramona: birth of mis-ce-ge-NATION”, which was included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, “Made in California: Best Art of the 20th Century.”
She is best known for “He rawe tona kakahu/She wore a becoming dress”, a Butoh performance about gender and colonisation. Her performative research is published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance and the Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies.
She studied Butoh with Diego Pinon, Oguri, and Shinichi Momo Koga; contact improvisation with Carmella Herman; and modern dance at the Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey Studios in New York.