Each video work has a hypnotic effect, and is an exercise in the simple act of looking and rediscovering the familiar - 'ordinary miracles', that is.

This on-going video project sees Kirsten Dryburgh and Lydia Chai stage a succession of quiet acts of investigation. Utilising a variety of everyday materials. Staging Miracles includes seven short videos made between 2008 and 2012, ranging from pseudo-scientific experiments to more abstracted explorations of intriguing visual anomalies.   

Artists' Biographies  

Kirsten Dryburgh was born in 1967 in Auckland and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts (2004). Dryburgh was a director of the artist run gallery space rm103 in Auckland. She is a member of the art group Parlour (http://parlourgroup.wordpress.com) and recently held an installation in her backyard in which she animated a tree with pulleys and a cement mixer.

Lydia Chai was born in 1980 in Malaysia and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2004). Her work was recently included in the exhibition Running on Pebbles, curated by Allan Smith at Snake Pit, Auckland (2012). Based in Auckland, Chai runs the art group Parlour with Dryburgh.

Kirsten Dryburgh
Staging Miracles I: Moon Spin   2010
Duration: 1:45mins
Staging Miracles II: Milk Moon   2011
Duration: 4:40mins
Staging Miracles III: Maddersphere   2012
Duration: 3:03
DVD
Courtesy of the artist

Lydia Cha
Staging Miracles I: Moon Rising   2008 
Duration: 4:34mins  
Staging Miracles I: Arcs   2008
Duration: 3:19mins
Staging Miracles II: Lilies of Disorient   2011
Duration: 2:29mins
Staging Miracles III: Orbit   2012
Duration: 1:28mins
DVD
Courtesy of the artist