Enjoy
Blog

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

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. 

Read more

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. 


 

Read more

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.

Read more

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.


 

Read more

New landscapes: Salome Tanuvasa reflects on Matavai Taulangau’s Ma‘u Pe Kai

Posted on April 3, 2020
by Salome Tanuvasa

In August 2019, Enjoy presented Matavai Taulangau’s solo exhibition Mau Pe Kai. Documenting three kumala harvests—one by the Tongan community in Okaihau, Northland, one by the artist’s mother in nearby Kaikohe, and one by the artist in Tāmaki Makaura—Taulangau’s moving image installation highlighted forms of labour that are often overlooked, emphasising the value of people and their experience.


Taulangau invited friend and fellow artist Salome Tanuvasa, whose work is included in our current exhibition This is a librarycurated by Hanahiva Rose, to reflect on his work. We’re delighted to share Tanuvasa’s text with you.

Read more

New titles in Enjoy's library

Posted on October 25, 2019

When Enjoy relocated earlier this year, we established a new reading room and multi-use space, and expanded our library collections through a number of generous donations from art spaces and publishers from Aotearoa, as well as new purchases from international art publishers such as World Food Books, Printed Matter and Sternberg Press. In this post, archive and library intern Connie Brown previews some of her favourite new titles. Enjoy’s reading room is an open-access resource for students, artists, writers and the general public for reading, research and collaboration. We invite you to pop in anytime during our opening hours and read some of these new books!

Read more

Snapshot #3: On Reflection: Clare Noonan’s Pilgrim Tourist

Posted on August 30, 2019
by Imogen Simmonds

Between May 2018 and April 2019, Enjoy's former archives and library intern Imogen Simmonds catalogued and rehoused our archive, making it easier to navigate and accessible to visitors in our new reading room. In this series of blog posts, Imogen reflects on interesting moments from Enjoy’s 19-year history, and considers how our past projects have helped shape who we are today. Read Snapshot #1 here. Read Snapshot #2 here.

Read more

Incursion

Posted on March 23, 2018

At the end of last year, we said goodbye to our long-standing photographer Shaun Matthews, who volunteered with the gallery for over two years. Shaun is an incredible photographer whose work Incursion is currently on display at Otari Wilton's Bush, the Wellington Botanic Gardens, Mount Victoria and Bush City at Te Papa.

Read more

DOWN TIME: Labour politics, subjectivity and counter-production

Posted on July 18, 2017

There are many points of entry into labour politics. That is the nature of advanced capitalism. Labour has become first nature and our existence demands that we participate in its politics. Yet this ‘we’ is overwhelmingly singular. Representation is exclusive, marking difference invisible or incomprehensible through the lens of the dominant culture. The knowledge of a reduced and individualised subjectivity is being produced elsewhere, sold back to us, transformed beyond any reconcilable image of our own realities.

Read more

An Interview with Quishile Charan

Posted on July 7, 2017
by Dilohana Lekamge

Ahead of her exhibition Namesake with Salome Tanuvasa, Quishile Charan talked with artist and writer Dilohana Lekamge about her textile practice, her family, and what the response to her work has been like so far. As an emerging artist of Indo-Fijian heritage living and working in Aotearoa New Zealand, Charan uses traditional modes of textile making to reflect upon the landscape of indentured labour and its ongoing post-colonial effects on the Indo-Fijian community. 

Read more

An Interview with Lana Lopesi

Posted on March 24, 2017

Lana Lopesi is a multi-disciplinary writer and artist based in Auckland. She is the Visual Arts Co-Editor of The Pantograph Punch and Contributing Editor for Design Assembly. Much of Lopesi’s work deals with themes of her Pacific heritage and the intersections of gender and ethnicity. In this interview I speak with her about the state of criticism in Aotearoa, addressing the preconceptions of who can engage in critique and the ways which we might open more constructive discourses around art.

Read more