Care
Writing
On Wet Ontologies, Fluid Hierarchies and Hope-Soaked Propositions at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney
By Emma O'Neill
26.08.2022
This year’s Biennale of Sydney, titled rīvus, included the work of Aotearoa-based artists Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi and Mata Aho Collective. Emma O’Neill, a writer working on Gadigal Land, responds to the exhibition and some of the work presented by the 89 participants invited to interact with different forms and bodies of water.
Writing
documenta fifteen or lumbung one?
By Bruce E. Phillips
12.08.2022
For documenta fifteen, the arts collective FAFSWAG were invited to participate as members of the lumbung process established by this year’s curatorial collective ruangrupa. In the absence of the trophy artist phenomenon so entrenched within mega-exhibitions, Bruce E. Phillips responds to the work of different participating collectives exhibiting in Kassel and discusses how introducing a non-European exhibition-making concept into the heart of arguably Europe’s most revered art event was bound to confound those unwilling to consider a differing perspective.
Writing
Caretaker to Caretaker
By Bopha Chhay, Paula Booker
18.01.2022
In Part One of this interview, Vancouver-based Aotearoa curators Paula Booker and Bopha Chhay talk about Chhay’s work as director of non-profit artist-run initiative Artspeak, the meaning of care in a curating role, the relationship between writing and art, and the place of artist-run initiatives in Canada and Aotearoa.
Writing
“Don’t Learn Anything More!”
By Connie Brown
26.10.2021
Writer Connie Brown pays a visit to Virginia Leonard’s studio, encountering the artist’s “fugly” ceramics and talking with her about recent and upcoming international exhibitions, her process into ceramic-making and the resistance her work offers to traditional notions of wellness, pain and the body.
Writing
Plants, love, and multispecies engagements
By Essi Kausalainen, Robyn Maree Pickens
09.07.2020
After first meeting at the Saari Residence in the southwest of Finland at the start of 2020, Aotearoa writer and poet Robyn Maree Pickens and Finnish performance artist Essi Kausalainen discuss how their diverse practices can mirror each other, about plants and the more-than-human world, along with the ramifications of Covid on their wellbeing and practice.
Writing
Caretaker to Caretaker
By Bopha Chhay, Paula Booker
18.01.2022
In Part Two of this interview, Vancouver-based Aotearoa curators Paula Booker and Bopha Chhay talk about Chhay’s work as director of non-profit artist-run initiative Artspeak, the challenges of maintaining a space during COVID-19, what decolonisation in art institutions can be like and working on unceded territory, and curating recent projects around the relationship between art and writing.
Writing
Social Imagination
By Lance Pearce
20.11.2020
Xin Cheng's Seeing Like a Forest, made during her study at HFBK - University Of Fine Arts Hamburg from 2017-2019, focuses on issues such as sustainability, communities, and resourcefulness. Artist and writer Lance Pearce discusses these themes and their relevance to a world in the midst of a pandemic.
Writing
Spin Slowly, Fighting Gravity
By Samuel Walsh
04.02.2019
Arts facilitator and producer Samuel Walsh reflects on his residency at Zaratan - Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon, Portugal, where he was able to develop ideas for his own artist-run space, Strange Haven, in Tāmaki Makaurau. Although thousands of miles apart, Walsh and the facilitators of Zaratan discovered their shared joys and struggles of running an art space, and the importance of community in their practice.
Writing
Forever Fresh Talanoa Series
By Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Isoa Tupua, Lyall Hakaraia
04.04.2021
Our second offering in this four-part talanoa series, produced in collaboration with In*ter*is*land Collective, sees Lyall Hakaraia and Isoa Tupua discuss queer communities/scenes in London, witnessing the bare minimum, gentrification, and how to clock an invite to a sex party. Written response by Brisbane-based poet, editor, weaver and festival director Anne-Marie Te Whiu.