Caravan to host artists in central city

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Thursday 8 June 2017

Caravan to host artists in central city

Artists will be taking up residency in a caravan on the Christchurch Art Gallery forecourt for a new exhibition by Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA) with artist collective, The Social.

The simple caravan will be the temporary residence of a series of artists between 5 June - 20 August 2017 as part of CoCA’s MAKING SPACE exhibition opening this weekend. The artists have been invited to take part by local artist collective The Social - a collective which encourages art to live and breathe outside of its usual infrastructure.

The Social are reinvigorating the Street Residency project, which began in 2013 in response to the major transformation of Christchurch following the 2010-11 earthquakes. The residency offered artists from out of town to the opportunity to be part of the transitional period when few galleries were operational in the central city. The project provided free accommodation for artists from Aotearoa and abroad who stayed for a week on a vacant site in the CBD when accommodation was limited, with the artists funding their own food and travel.

The Street Residency is an invitation for the public to come and connect with creative communities and experience how the city has changed and see what it has to offer artists now. Every fortnight, a new resident to the caravan will bring new and exciting possibilities for exploration and collaboration. Many of the artists will be creating work inside CoCA as part of their residency. Members of the public are invited to talk and interact with the resident artist and attend events both inside and outside the gallery.

CoCA’s Khye Hitchcock, curator of MAKING SPACE said: “The Social’s Street Residency was a vital lifeline for connecting Ōtautahi Christchurch artists with creative communities around Aotearoa and the world.

“First established during a difficult period, when there was little infrastructure, gallery or otherwise, available in the CBD, The Social facilitated cross-pollination with a generosity of spirit and can-do attitude which was so prevalent post-quakes. The collective has carried this energy through to MAKING SPACE, using the opportunity as a seeding project and offering it to other artists through an open call for proposals to participate in the Street Residency and other MAKING SPACE projects.

“They’ve created a network of artists and creative practices which really expand the reach and ideas in the exhibition, spanning the distances from here to as far away as Switzerland. It will be exciting to see what the residents and other artists bring to CoCA during the next three months.”

For part of the exhibition, the residency will be running alongside past caravan resident Martin Schick’s Nomad (thinking) Residency. A parallel caravan residency programme will be run in a camping ground in Switzerland with communication and exchanges between artists taking part in this international residency - playing on the concept of presence and absence.

MAKING SPACE (10 June - 20 August 2017) celebrates collaborative art practice and why it forms. Taking place in the heart of Ōtautahi Christchurch - where collaboration and collective working has become part of the fabric of the post-earthquake city, MAKING SPACE involves six diverse artist collectives and over thirty individuals practising at the cutting-edge of the Aotearoa art community.

During MAKING SPACE the gallery will host works, events and the members of FAFSWAG, FIKA Writers, Fresh and Fruity, Mata Aho Collective, SaVAge K’lub, and The Social with the aim of inviting diverse communities to connect, create art, encourage conversations and offer an opportunity to shift how we view art and its potential for social change.

MAKING SPACE opens to the public on Saturday 10 June. Admission is free. The Social Street Residency is running from 5 June - 20 August on Christchurch Art Gallery’s Montreal Street forecourt. For news and updates on this project, visit coca.org.nz.

ENDS

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