First Thursdays is looking forward to welcoming back Wellington emerging artist, Jordana Bragg, who will be bringing down a work made specifically for the February event. Lost In Space promises to be an absurd yet poignant work that elicits a wide range of reactions and strikes a chord with many in the 'selfie generation'.

Jordana Bragg is a young and emerging artist, currently going into her final year of study towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Honours at Massey University Wellington. She was selected to take part in the first First Thursdays: Stars of Sydenham, where she screened a site/theme specific large scale video projection of the work Hollywood BLVD, 2014, on the wall of Broker Web.

This trip sees the video/performance artist developing a new work specifically for the event. This work will also take up the theme of the event as the provocation for the production of a site specific and responsive artwork.

Lost in Space, 2015, is a performance/video work, developed specifically for and aptly titled after the theme of the event itself. The work will consist of a television (located within the event), which will be exhibiting a live stream continuously throughout the duration of the event. Bragg will be suiting up in an astronaut costume and filming herself (utilising a ‘selfie stick’ attached to an IPhone), and live streaming the act of walking to and from the event, where people can visit the computer located within the event and track her progress as she excavates the everyday. Returning to the television/home base intermittently, only when it becomes apparent she may become lost or lose reception entirely. 

The title Lost in Space refers directly to the event and also to the conceptual underpinnings present in the the work, with ‘space’ being investigated in multiple aspects: 
1.) Space, literally referring to that of intergalactic space beyond earth and between  universes, (referenced in the wearing of an astronaut suit).
2.) Space, in relation to physical everyday spaces, (referenced directly in the utilisation of Christchurch streets / public spaces). 
3.) Space, as not only physical, but cyber. (Represented in the use of live streaming between a computer and an IPhone attached to a selfie stick, referencing and actively critiquing prevailing ‘screen/selfie culture). 

By dressing as an astronaut and filming herself Bragg attempts a potentially comical investigation of the contemporary utilisation of public spaces, attempting to ‘set out on a journey from ‘home base’ (the event), and throughout the event expanding upon it and discovering beyond, simulating that of an on earth ‘space’ expedition. She will be collecting small items on her ‘journeys out’ throughout the night and bringing them back to ‘home base’, with the purpose of data collecting, examination and analysis, potentially referencing the work as a pseudo-scientific investigation which attempts to reconsider familiar everyday spaces, examining and encountering them in new ways as an astronaut may do in ‘outer space’.  

Deadset in The Colombo will act as Bragg's home base. Keep an eye out for her meanderings throughout Sydenham from 6-9pm.