Every now and then, I write something longer-form - usually on commission, often for galleries. Here's a selection of these pieces, made freely available.
Essays
collaborating with others with different experiences, though often more difficult, can be beneficial—for both parties or just one? collaborating across lines of privilege when you are the one holding that privilege requires responsibility and respect.
Essays
It was a simple install - two pieces of Halswell quarry stone in the main room; a small portrait leaning against the wall at the back of the hall, in what once may have been a laundry cupboard; and two delicate pencil drawings of detailed masonry paired with poetry printed on office paper stock.
Essays
There is a sea change in the Ōtautahi arts scene. This city feels a lot more like home than it did when I left over a decade ago, and on every visit since. Suddenly, Christchurch feels possible.
Essays
The context of this city in 2016 is irremovable from earthquake recovery, but the tone of that context has moved from shock and mourning to exploring the potential of the rebuild as well as frustration with that process.
Essays
If being abject is distant, is other, is not something normative society wishes to face, then weaponising that abjection, emphasising it and making it impossible to ignore, is a radical act.
Essays
Perhaps what we need is a new L Word; one filled so thoroughly with minority representations that we no longer are the minority; one that does not utilise our representations to justify harmful normative ideals.
Essays
“How could it be unhealthy, that which makes a man happy and inspires in him beautiful and lofty things! His only misfortune is that social barriers and penal codes stand in the way of ‘naturally’ expressing his drive. This would be a great hardship.”
Essays
Contemporary workings of parasexuality describe specific kinds of relationships between majority groups and marginalised groups or people; relationships where structural power imbalances are at work.
Essays
I got an email from Alex Mitcalfe Wilson about a piece he’s writing as part of Artspace’s critical texts series on W e l c o m e.. The following is my response, containing his questions. The piece is in reference to the essay Para- and the accompanying sculpture.