Faces Places & Spaces The New Zealand Project

Faces Places & Spaces The New Zealand Project Space Forum

Friday 13th August 2004

Faces Places & Spaces is one-day forum taking place during SPARK 04, which is organized by Wintec’s Creative Industries Research Centre in partnership with Creative New Zealand.

Project Spaces have come to play a pivotal role in the ecology of the visual arts, and this highly topical event will facilitate an in-depth, wide-ranging investigation of their significance for New Zealand. Practitioners, curators and administrators from an array of national and international spaces are being invited to share their experiences, and everyone present will be able to join in an exploration of the new directions project spaces might take in the future.

What are Project Spaces?

Project spaces may appear as:

artist-run initiatives (Room 103, High Street, Blue Oyster, Enjoy, Art Box Project, SHOW) incorporated bodies with formal board structures (Artspace, Physics Room) spaces attached to tertiary institutions (Adam Gallery, RAMP, SOFA), spaces attached to public art galleries (City Gallery’s Michael Herschfeld Gallery, DPAG's Rear Window) itinerant, not attached to a specific venue or site (Cuckoo)

Many project spaces rely on links between practitioners, curators and administrators connected to different organisations throughout New Zealand. These links are often informal and ad hoc. While this can be a great strength, there is also the potential to increase the capabilities of project spaces through greater collaboration and the sharing of knowledge, experiences and resources. FACES PLACES & SPACES The New Zealand Project Space Forum

This forum will help develop a greater understanding of the ecology of project spaces at a national and international level. It will provide examples of the kinds of emergent practices, innovative responses to, and new solutions arrived at by similar spaces at home and overseas, and it will help to clarify the opportunities available within the New Zealand context.

Faces Places & Spaces will kick off with talks from two authorities on the subject. Both have been involved in the evolution of innovative, unconventional spaces – one in Sweden and one in Australia – and both are radically changing the interface between art and audience.

Niklas Ostholm (Sweden) Niklas Östholm was born in Karlstad, Sweden, and now lives and works in Stockholm. Since January 2000 he has been a contributing curator to Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation. Index is a non-commercial art space, which provide exhibitions, projects, education and collaborations with other art institutions. Outside of Index Niklas has curated exhibitions elsewhere in Sweden as well as in Norway and Russia. Since 2003 he has been working as the Project Manager at IASPIS (International Artists' Studio Program in Sweden). For more information please visit: http://www.indexfoundation.nu and http://www.iaspis.com

Blair Trethowan (Australia) Blair Trethowan and his artist peers established an artist-run space called TCB in Melbourne. The original TCB closed in September 2000, then relocated and expanded to include a unique new space known as Uplands. Uplands, a commercial gallery, is directed by Trethowan together with his long-time friend and fellow artist Jarrod Rawlins; their ambitious partnership is a pioneering arrangement that could well alter the future of traditional artist/gallery relationships. TCB continues to exhibit and support young artists while Uplands exhibits a wide range of contemporary art practice; together the two spaces form an innovative hub between emerging and established artists.

Faces Places & Spaces will give everyone interested in project spaces a chance to initiate or develop relationships with like-minded individuals and organizations. Even better, it will help our project spaces to maximise their creative potential, so New Zealand’s contemporary art can flourish.

FACES PLACES & SPACES The New Zealand Project Space Forum

PROGRAMME:

09:00 - 10:00 Welcome/Coffee/Networking

10:00 - 11:00 Niklas Östholm, INDEX, Contemporary Art Forum, Sweden

11:00 - 12:00 Blair Trethowan, Uplands, Melbourne, Australia

12:00 - 13:00 Lunch

13:00 - 15:00 Focus on NZ Project Spaces:

Nick Spratt - rm103 Tobias Berger - Artspace Emma Bugden - City Gallery Anna Miles - Anna Miles Gallery Gwynneth Porter - Cuckoo

15:00 - 15:30 Coffee & Networking

15.30 - 16.00 Breakout discussions groups

16:00 - 17:00 PANEL DISCUSSION Chaired by Aaron Kreisler

17:00 – 17:30 Summary, Farewell & Close

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