Author(s): Sophie Davis & Simon Gennard (editors)

Art | Read our reviews! | Gloria

Emerging discussions on art, labour and collaboration in Aotearoa is a digital and print publication that emerges from thinking, talking and making around art, labour and life in contemporary Aotearoa. Initially prompted by a series of questions we asked ourselves around the role Enjoy—and the contemporary art space more generally—plays within a broader arts ecology and society, this publication looks outward, building upon conversations with friends and colleagues around how to make a life, and a living, in and around art.

Published in collaboration with Enjoy, As needed, as possible considers the social, economic and political frameworks practitioners and organisations occupy in contemporary Aotearoa. It aims to make a modest contribution to a wider field of discussion thinking through the kind of spaces and culture we wish to be working in, and how we might arrive there.

With contributions by Emma Bugden and Chloe Geoghegan, Sophie Davis, Simon Gennard, Sarah Hudson and Zoe Thompson-Moore, Ella Grace McPherson-Newton, Ōtautahi Kōrerotia, Public Share, James Tapsell-Kururangi and Ema Tavola.

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STELLA'S REVIEW
As Needed, As Possible is a collection of writing and reflections on and discussions about art, labour and collaboration in Aotearoa. Spearheaded by Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, editors Sophie Davis and Simon Gennard, and invited contributors explore the roles of artist-run spaces, collaboration, community and dialogue between artists and curators to engage readers of this publication in thoughtful writing and ongoing discussion. As often is the case with the best writing, it is questions that lead to the best innovation. Published in conjunction with GLORIA Books, designer Katie Kerr has captured the ‘ready to go’ aesthetic of the print-ready PDF file in a perfectly bound and attractive ‘hand’book retaining the autonomy of the individual pieces while embracing the collective whole — a description that could be used in underpinning the concerns of many of the writers in this publication. As conversations weave through the challenges and rewards of running artist-spaces; balancing, or in the cases of James Tapsell- Kururangi and Zoe Thompson-Moore embracing, the domestic sphere with their art practice; reflecting on the political and economic aspects of art within the wider neoliberal construct; and the role of collaboration for artists, the art sector and the wider community, the reader is aware of a breadth of thinking and research, of reflection, in the small pieces presented in this publication. Written over a number of years, some before the pandemic, others during Lockdown, they are varied in presentation and approach. The email exchange between Sarah Hudson and Zoe Thompson-Moore, artists and mothers of young children, in “The Making of Bread”, is lively and punchy, laced with humour amid the reality of domesticity — when you never have enough time, but ideas spark nevertheless — a bit like a well-made loaf. They discuss bread as the memories it sparks, sustenance which it gives, its necessity, and the words they list to describe it — maintenance, attention, fermentation, transformation etc — are delightfully applicable to the creative process. In his photo essay and reflections, “Gains? Grandmother. Grey Street.” James Tapsell-Kururangi also approaches the domestic as he documents and explores ‘a year of living' as an art project. In the essays “Finding Time to Discuss Nothing” from the Ōtautahi Kōrerotia collective and “Risky Business” a conversation between curators Emma Budgen and Chloe Geoghegan, artist-run spaces are considered from functional and analytical viewpoints providing insight and food for thought. The conversation between Budgen and Geoghegan, reflecting on past and present, their personal experiences in artist-run spaces, alongside political and social constructs (“Funding is never neutral” - EB) and the wider arts sector is particularly engaging in the labour/value/art discussion and the consideration of otherness or the embracing of an ethos of ‘relative autonomy'. In her closing statement, Budgen reveals that the conversation which reads seamlessly has occurred over many months in the moments after everything else, in the ‘gaps’. Another example of the value afforded art practice and conversation. While this necessity to exist in spite of challenges, time constraints, financial risk and the limits of a capitalist system (deftly explored in No nSense by Public Space — so simple, so perfect and so political) can be seen as a positive (it is often a barrier) towards stimulating engaging dialogue and creativity, it is interesting to note the recent acknowledgement of the ‘value’ of art in Ireland’s new Basic Income for artists scheme. A thought-provoking collection of writing for artists and anyone engaged with making space, literally or metaphorically, for art.