Waiho i te toipoto
Kaua I te toiroa
Let us keep together not wide apart
The Space Between Us Symposium was initiated to create space for the creative research practice of our staff to be seen by both students and stakeholders, as well as enabling a discourse between us around the state of the arts within the context of the institution in 2022. The exhibition provides an opportunity to explore the conceptual and physical spaces between the disciplines of Creative Industries in our seemingly dispersed and nomadic relationship with Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka.
Art practice is diverse and interrogatory, while also culturally and socio-politically positioned. Within an institution offering a range of creative practice we acknowledge the gallery as fundamentally both an education tool and sociocultural interface – a space in which play may occur, questions can be asked and the way in which the world is made sense of is articulated. Further to this we acknowledge the significance of the sites that we occupy and the potential for challenging the relationship of artist and audience as we move outside conventional modes of performance and presentation. The symposium space loosens institutional conventions for assembling and presenting knowledge, inviting conversations between staff, students, wider arts professions and communities across the creative industries sector.
While caught in the uncertainty of a global pandemic, which has seen many of us reconsider the implication of proximities and extend the way we practice through virtual and digital platforms, this exhibition and symposium aims to bring the creative outputs from Creative Industries into common spaces as a shared dialogue across both events. With the locations of the school shifting physically, the purpose, to celebrate bringing the people and conditions of these programmes together seems more crucial than ever before.
The kaupapa for The Space Between Us extends to generate discourse in response to the land and spaces we occupy across a range of place-based arts practices. We celebrate the closing of the exhibition with a slow hīkoi of performative and participatory works across the whenua; beginning at the Noho Kotahitanga Marae to arrive at Gallery One, located in Building 76. This ambulatory symposium enables a critical space of activation, practice and discussion, situated within the land we currently occupy – it’s histories, current stories and futures as a site of knowledge.
Gina Ferguson and Becca Wood
