Enjoy
Blog

Here you’ll find interviews with artists, reading lists and more. Contributed by Enjoy’s interns, staff, artists and friends.

Proposal for a Body Reading List

Posted on February 23, 2024
by Brooke Pou

Proposal for a Body posits that sound and text-matter are mediums that can be regarded as inherently queer in their expansive and corporally liminal states. Jo Bragg and Georgina Brett draw on the music and writing of artists Loren Connors and Kim Gordon to communicate through sound and poetry abstract-experience; what is inexplicable.


 

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2023 Summer Residency

Posted on December 19, 2022

We’re excited to announce Heidi Brickell is our 2023 Summer Resident. Heidi is an artist currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau, and will join us as artist-in-residence from 11 February – 26 March 2023, staying at the Rita Angus Cottage in Thorndon.

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Through My Claystone Eyes

Posted on September 24, 2022
by Eleanor Díaz Ritson

Globally, we live in an age that worships the new. The old is disregarded as we witness monumental global change and participate in deep–time alterations. Contemporary culture offers us activism by tweet; metaverse fever dreams; ideological warfare; humanoid immortality; and off-planet utopian fantasies. We’re seduced into feeding narcissistic distractions that demand constant input while populations are displaced by conflict and climate. In this age—founded by materialism, industrialisation and the spoils of empire—we view ourselves as intrinsically separate to nature: flora, fauna, organic and inorganic matter on this planet. Not only are we conditioned to take for granted a fictitious understanding that humanity is the singular possessor of agency, our sense of time has become dislocated and short-sighted.


 


 

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Reading The Stones Talk

Posted on July 6, 2022
by Liang Cui

It is usually taken for granted by museum visitors that archaeological objects are chronologically displayed according to certain scientific classifications. These methodologies serve a continuous historical narrative, either to promote simplified Darwinian evolution of humanity from primitive to modern, or patriotic sentiments. This methodology also guides the selection of the objects to be exhibited. Yet this leaves us with a rarely asked question—how about objects which cannot be integrated into the museum’s story, and thus are rendered as ‘others,’ by current museology?

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Ko wai a Māpihi? This is not water. Reading list

Posted on May 23, 2022

Ko wai a Māpihi? This is not water is an exhibition backed by a lot of investigation conducted by the artists Cae and Nick and the communities and people who’s knowledge they have drawn on. Books and essays, as the research materials behind the scene, have also been included as an integral part of the resultant exhibition, the presence of which is of great importance to accomplish the artists’ aim in this exhibition.

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Eleanor Diaz Ritson Studio Visit

Posted on April 27, 2022
by Tom Denize

Earlier this year we announced Eleanor Diaz Ritson as the Enjoy Contemporary Art Space 2022 summer resident artist. Four weeks into her residency at the Rita Angus Cottage in Thorndon, Enjoy’s assistant curator Tom Denize paid her a visit to see how her residency was going and bring some light to the inner workings of her practice. 


 

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Lockdown Studio Visits #4

Posted on November 25, 2021
by Tallulah Farrar

Haere mai whanau and join me, 2021 Tautai arts Intern Sophia Amore Coghini, while we indulge in the fourth in our series of artist interviews. 


Pōneke based artist Tallulah Farrar has created the digital illustration He Kanohi Kitea  that now enlivens our communal reading room. Tallulah works across multiple mediums, such as digital illustration, textiles, mosaic, murals and animation. Drawing inspiration from the everyday, she uses bright colour and pattern to capture moments of ordinary beauty. Tallulah uses her practice as a tool for playful escapism, influenced by nostalgia and growth. Let's see what she's been up to.

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Tom Denize's lockdown reading picks

Posted on November 9, 2021

Tom Denize is currently studying for a BFA at Massey University and has been interning at Enjoy for 2021 as part of the Massey internship elective. Part of Tom's work at Enjoy has been reviving the reading/writing group. The in person meet-ups are on hold due to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 and 2 restrictions, so here are some of Tom's top reading picks.


 

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Lockdown Studio Visits #3

Posted on October 15, 2021
by Ziggy Lever

Tautai arts intern Sophia Amore Coghini is back at it again, with the third in a series of artist interviews. We continue with Tāmaki Makaurau artists whose planned exhibitons at Enjoy have been disrupted or rescheduled due to Covid restrictions.


Ziggy Lever has had his 2021 exhibition rescheduled to later this year (fingers crossed and COVID-19 alert levels permitting). His art reconsiders archives as provisional arrangements of images and matter, opening up the possibility to renegotiate sites of knowing and not knowing. 


Here's what Ziggy's been up to. 

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Lockdown Studio Visits #2

Posted on October 1, 2021
by Hanna Shim 심한나

Join Tautai arts intern Sophia Amore Coghini for the second in a series of interviews with artists on what they got up to this lockdown. We're starting with Tāmaki Makaurau artists whose planned exhibitons at Enjoy have been disrupted or rescheduled due to COVID-19 Alert level 4 and 3 restrictions.


Artist Hanna Shim 심한나 has had her 2021 exhibition rescheduled to Feburary 2022. Shim identifies herself as a maker, often working in large scale fabric sculpture. Her works talk about naivety with a sinister undertone. The works may seem cute, but are filled with unexpected twists and irony.


Here's what Hanna has been up to lately. 


 

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Lockdown Studio Visits #1

Posted on September 23, 2021
by Ruby 嫦潔 White

Enjoy our new series of artist interviews, conducted by Tautai Arts Intern Sophia Amore Coghini, for a cheeky little insight into what several artists got up to this lockdown. We're starting with Tāmaki Makaurau artists whose planned exhibitons at Enjoy have been disrupted or reschedueled due to COVID-19 Alert level 4 and 3 restrictions.


Artist Ruby 嫦潔 White's exhibition Pieces of  is in its final week at Enjoy. Ruby's ceramic works/cookers/creatures are currently stranded in Te Whanganui a Tara until restrictions are lifted allowing Ruby to come pick them up.

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Help Yourself introduction and reading list

Posted on June 2, 2021
by Grace Ryder

This introductory essay was written by Grace Ryder for Help Yourself an exhibition co-authored by Turumeke Harrington and Grace Ryder with Sarah Hudson, Saskia Leek, Kristin Leek and Greta Menzies (28 May-10 July 2021).


The reading list that follows includes texts referenced in Ryder's writing as well as readings and books instrumental to Harrington and Ryder's respective practices, their friendship and their collaborative work devising Help Yourself. Copies of these texts are available in Enjoy's reading room for the duration of the exhibition.


 

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