As needed, as possible.
GLORIA & Enjoy Contemporary Art Space
Emerging discussions on art, labour and collaboration in Aotearoa
As needed, as possible 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.
As we write, the entire field of play is undergoing a series of radical changes, the long-term effects of which cannot be comprehended from this juncture. Some of the contributions to this volume were written prior to the events surrounding Covid-19, and many do not directly reference the situation we now find ourselves in. If anything, they now remind us that the exigencies faced by contemporary practitioners—questions of how to fit art around raising a family, how to play with risks and possibilities, how to grapple with history and the present—have not disappeared in the face of crisis, and continued dialogue is more important than ever.
As needed, as possible will unfold over the following weeks and months, as PDF downloads of individual contributions are released periodically. It is our hope that the publication helps maintain our grip on art and its possibilities in unpredictable circumstances, and offers opportunities for conversation, thought, pleasure and solidarity.
— Sophie Davis and Simon Gennard, Editors
A note on the design
When designing a book, PDFs will be exchanged between editor, designer, proofreader, printer as the publication evolves from concept to print. This collection of files can be an interesting insight into the designer’s process,an archive of thinking that is rarely seen. In this project, we see the PDF as a space for experimentation. Releasing the contributions periodically as PDFs generates the opportunity for catalogued design research. As we work towards publishing the book later in the year, each file acts as a possible point of departure for the impending publication.
A PDF can be a “working file,” but it’s also something to be saved. As we discussed this project, we noted our own folders of PDFs filed away for future reference, able to be accessed offline or ripe for printing—anytime, anywhere, on the home printer, in multiples, shared amongst colleagues, students, friends, and then thrown away until it is remade to be referenced again. As an antithesis to the current acme of online content , we suggest that this is how you could use these PDFs. If you can, enjoy them offline. Fire up the home printer, use the last of your black ink, spill your cup of tea on the paper.
— Katie Kerr, Designer
“Bagels with Sweet Chilli Philly was the first thing that tasted good for the entirety of my pregnancy. This week, when I had bagels for breakfast I felt really, deeply, appreciative. This particular iteration of bagels almost taste like relief for me now: relief—my kid is in the world; relief—my body did the thing I needed it to; relief—I’ve got someone to deliver toasted goodness to me after a long night; relief.”
“Ultimately, I think we need a diversity of spaces: spaces propelled by artistic and personal risk, that burn out in a blaze of glory leaving behind nothing but anecdotes; spaces that evolve into well-behaved, funded organisations that stay the distance, acting as launching pads focused on career development; and spaces that stick around but take a slower, quieter role as a testing ground, less financially secure and more explorative. The kind of messy, textured art world I want to inhabit would value all of these models equally, for different reasons.”
"In February 1908, on the West Coast of the South Island in Aotearoa New Zealand, Blackball miners went on strike for a thirty-minute lunch break rather than the fifteen minutes allowed under their award. A union leader, Pat Hickey, had refused to stop eating his pie when the manager told him his fifteen-minute lunch break was up. Workers were fired, leading to the strike, which caught the public imagination when the presiding judge took a ninety-minute lunch adjournment before fining the miners.
Over one hundred years later, the Public Share collective brings focus to the ten-minute tea break—a hard-won right, secured through organised labour."
I was wondering what would be useful for an to read.
I know I have a responsibility to look after my Nan’s house. And my whānau.
I don’t really know if these fragments of text are anything close to a year spent living at Nan’s house.
You’re not supposed to make art about .
…It was a year spent living.
I wonder what I would show at a ?
I would like to be generous to an .
I don’t think, or I don’t want the year spent living at Nan’s house to be a .
I do not want to her or my life and family as art.
I do want to ask; can a year living at my grandmother’s house be an artwork?
I remember a searching kōrero on blue benches. Late spring and the bud of a relationship in conversation between the three of us: What should a space for art prioritise? What can we afford (time/money) to do right now? How do we want ourselves and others to feel?
Download the full text as a PDF
Alongside their text, Caitlin, Hamish and Māia share a kōrero, recorded in April 2020, exploring ŌK's ongoing relationship, their past projects and their evolving kaupapa.
The meaning of Pacific art is defined by Pacific audiences, and the way Pacific art is encountered in “Pacific space”. The conversation that art facilitates is carefully held space where views and truths have time to swim with each other. That territory, where curators, gallerists and arts workers swim, listening and talking, translates, transmits and embeds meaning. Here, talanoa—oral (and silent) exchanges, shaped by connections, closeness and context—is sacred.