Wellington

Mark Amery is an arts editor, curator, critic, broadcaster and journalist, he has been visual arts critic at the Dominion Post for the last six years. Mark has been commentating, producing and interviewing on radio since 1989, for RNZ, Radio Active and bFM. He was editor of national arts magazine Stamp, a founding deputy editor of Pavement magazine, and editor of Capital Times and dance magazine DANZ, critic and arts journalist for the Sunday Star-Times, The Listener and Evening Post, and has contributed to numerous magazines from Metro to international art magazine Flash Art. He was part of the curatorial team at City Gallery 2000-2002, heavily involved in Artspace in the early 1990s, and more recently the Director of Playmarket. In 2010 he is co-curator of a Wellington public art programme Letting Space.

Brisbane

Carmen Ansaldo is a freelance art writer and editor with a degree in Fine Arts (Painting) from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University; and honours in Art History from the University of Queensland. Usually based in Brisbane she is currently living in Berlin. To view more of her work please go to http://carmenansaldo.wordpress.com/

Christchurch

A Christchurch-based art consultant, he studied painting at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the late 70s, completed at Post-grad Diploma in Art Curation at Melbourne University in the mid-90s, and was director of Campbell Grant Galleries (1997-2008). Grant has written for The Press and is a regular contributor to Art New Zealand.

Christchurch

Roger Boyce, an American expat, once harbored an ambition - immigrate to the antipodes and die. Seven years later, and in Aotearoa, that ambition has yet to be seen through. Boyce paints compulsively, writes fitfully and, when school’s in session, instructs nascent painting practitioners. He has written, from time to time, about art - despite a steeply declining interest in the critical form - for a laundry list of publications. Some now moribund, and others (per usual) teetering on insolvency’s edge. They included: New Art Examiner, Art in America, Sculpture, Artnet, and Art New Zealand.

Los Angeles

Laura Brown is a curator and writer currently living in Los Angeles, with a background studying studio art at the Queensland College of Art. She was the co-founder of the online journal The Maximilian, and most recently curated a three-part exhibition series titled Rinse & Repeat held in The Hangar offsite space in Brisbane, Australia. She has written for publications such as the CACSA Broadsheet and Independent Press, and has presented on numerous panels, symposia, and exhibition talks.

Auckland

Teghan Burt is an artist.

Auckland

Kelly Carmichael is a contemporary art curator and critic. She has worked in Europe, the US and the Middle East and is currently back home in Auckland after 12 years away. She has a special interest in cultural diplomacy, is a former guest editor of the Visiting Arts website, London, and has contributed to projects for the Commonwealth Foundation. She contributes regularly to contemporary art journals in the Middle East and abroad.

London

Garth Cartwright is a Auckland born, London based journalist and author. He contributes to many publications — from Songlines to the Financial Times -- and is the author of the following books: Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians, More Miles Than Money: Journeys Through American Music, Miles Davis: The Illustrated History, Sweet As: Journeys In A New Zealand Summer and 2018’s Going For A Song: A Chronicle Of The UK Record Shop. www.garthcartwright.com

Christchurch

Zoe Crook is an instigator. She has a BFA(Sculpture) from Ilam School of Fine Arts and a partial BA (Art History, English, Sociology) from the University of Canterbury.

Wellington

David Cross was a Wellington based artist and writer who is now based in Melbourne. His practice is largely performance and installation based and focuses on the relationship between pleasure, the grotesque and the phobic. His often large scale performance installations have sought to incorporate and extend contemporary theories of participation linking performance art with object-based environments. He has shown widely in Australia and New Zealand at Perspecta 99 in Sydney and Australian Centre of Contemporary Art Melbourne. He was included in the survey of contemporary New Zealand performance, Mostly Harmless, at Govett Brewster Art Gallery and has developed solo projects for Interactions 5 in Poland and Performance Studies International in Zagreb. Cross also writes extensively on contemporary art for local and international journals and recently co-edited the book One Day Sculpture with Claire Doherty. He is Associate Professor in Fine Art at Massey University.

Wellington

Chloe Cull (Ngai Tahu) has recently graduated Victoria University with a Master’s in Art History. She is particularly interested in contemporary indigenous arts and the development of mana wahine art histories.

Wellington

Jodie has worked for more than a decade within the art museum sector and beyond, curating too many exhibitions to now count and writing about artists’ work with care. She is particularly interested in the phenomenological experience of art and the creative process. Published in numerous art historical and critical journals, she also holds a Master of Creative Writing (First Degree Honours) with which she explored the writing of sound and music in literary fiction. Currently based in Luxembourg, she is linking in to various art scenes across Europe.

Berlin

April Dell is a freelance art writer from New Zealand. She studied Art History and Film, Media and Communications at Otago University, and is currently living and working in Berlin.

Hamilton

Peter Dornauf (MA DipEd) is an artist and writer who has worked in the field of education for over 25 years. He has written two novels, Day of Grass and A to J; a collection of 10 short stories, The Decalogue; three novellas, The Philosopher, The Physicist, The Poet; and a 600 page cultural and intellectual history, How We Were Made: Modern to Postmodern. His most recent works include a critical study of religion, Dodging and Weaving: A History of Religious Rationalization, a companion volume called, Living Without Gods, and a book on the history of death entitled, The Days of Our Deaths.

Wellington

Originally from Canada, Erin now lives and studies in Wellington. She is currently working on a PhD thesis that investigates connections between space exploration and contemporary Earthworks art in the United States during the sixties and seventies. She has written art reviews for the Otago Daily Times and had an article published in Oculus: Postgraduate Journal for Visual Arts Research. Erin is interested in how cultural histories are reflected in the visual arts, and is constantly confused by this relationship - in the best possible way.

Wellington

Mary-Jane Duffy is a poet and essayist with a background in museums and art galleries. From 2004-10 she co-directed the Mary Newton Gallery in Wellington. She now manages and teaches on the Whitireia Creative Writing Programme.

Wellington

Megan Dunn has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland University. From 1997 - 2000 she was co-director of the artist run space Fiat Lux. During this time her video art was exhibited throughout New Zealand. In 2006 she completed her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, graduating with distinction. Her fiction and reviews have been published in Landfall, Art New Zealand, Pavement, The Listener and on various websites. She is currently on the board of Circuit, Artist Film and Video Aotearoa. http://www.circuit.org.nz/

Auckland

Liz Eastmond is an independent art historian, curator, writer. She recently ran Tivoli, a gallery and bookstore on Waiheke, earlier lecturing in Art History at the University of Auckland, to focus on women artists and book arts.

Christchurch

Warren Feeney is a writer, art historian and author of ‘The Radical, the Reactionary and the Canterbury Society of Arts 1880-1996,’ published by Canterbury University Press in 2011. He was director of the Centre of Contemporary Art from 1999 to 2010 and is currently the administrator of Chambers@241, a gallery he co-founded in July 2011 in Christchurch to support the work of local artists. He is interested in the relationship New Zealanders have with their art and culture and has published in: The Journal of New Zealand Art History, New Zealand Journal of History, The New Zealand Dictionary of Biography, Landfall, Art New Zealand and Art News, as well as writing for The Press and Sunday Star-Times. He is also a member of the Professional Historians Association of New Zealand/Aotearoa and holds a wide range of interests in the visual arts from the fine arts and architecture to high/low art and conceptual practice.

Hamilton

Dr Norman P. Franke is a Hamilton based scholar, poet and film-maker. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. Norman has published widely about 18th century literature, German-speaking exile literature (Albert Einstein, Else Lasker-Schüler, Karl Wolfskehl) eco-poetics and at the intersection of religion and poetry. His poetry has been published in anthologies in Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.

Sydney

Rachel Fuller is a Sydney-based artist and arts writer. She writes for Art & Australia, Frieze, Das Superpaper and runway. From 2008-2010 she was a co-director of Locksmith Project Space, during which time she also edited arts journal, Locksmith Project. Fuller is one half of the creative collaboration bams & ted and in other news, is currently compiling a bibliography of the published works of Australian artist, Norman Lindsay.

Auckland

Tim Gentles has a BA (Hons) in Comparative Literature from the University of Auckland. Tim is an art and music writer, interested in the intersection and evolution of musical and art/visual practices in the contemporary. He has written for Rose Quartz Blog, Ad Hoc, Altered Zones and foxy digitalis, as well as writing a number of exhibition reviews and accompanying texts.

Dunedin

Sophie is an art enthusiast based in Dunedin. She recently enjoyed completing a BA in Art History and Theory at the University of Otago. She is currently searching for things to do to make her biography more extensive.

London

Will Gresson is an artist, musician and writer, currently based in London, UK and Berlin, Germany. Since relocating from Auckland in 2009, he has been involved in various performances and exhibitions in Germany, New Zealand, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Alongside his other work, between May 2011-June 2013 he also ran the Selektives Hören Archiv, an online archive of parts of the experimental music scene in Berlin. selektives-hoeren-archiv.dablweb.com

London

Lily Hacking is a curator, writer and maker. She was Assistant Curator & Public Programmes at City Gallery Wellington and was the Blumhardt Curatorial Intern at the Dowse Art Museum in 2011. She is currently living in South London, trying to grow tomatoes on a rooftop.

Nelson

Nicholas Haig grew up and lives in Nelson. Currently a Museum Studies MA candidate, in recent years he has laboured on and around the fringes of the local arts community.

Auckland

Scott Hamilton has a Masters in Art History and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Auckland. His PhD thesis was published in 2011 by Manchester University Press as The Crisis of Theory: EP Thompson, the New Left, and Postwar British Politics. Hamilton has published two books of poetry and an annotated selection of the poems of Kendrick Smithyman. His blog, <readingthemaps.blogspot.com> has had more than a million readers since 2006. Hamilton lived in Tonga in 2013, where he taught Creative Writing and Sociology at the ‘Atenisi Institute.

Manukau Heads

Terrence Handscomb is a writer and theorist, who for some time, has been interested in the relationship between arts practice and theory. This also includes critical consideration of the politics and the institutional presentation of art.  http://www.terrence.org/

Sydney

Matthew Hanson lives and works in Auckland.

Auckland

JJ Harper is an art writer b. 2000.

Sydney

André Hemer is an artist who works between a variety of media- interplaying digital interfaces and artifacts, painting, and site-specific installation. He undertook an MFA from the University of Canterbury and was awarded a postgraduate residency at the Royal College of Art, London. In 2011 he won the National Contemporary Art Award at the Waikato Museum. Currently he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Sydney and so is currently based in Sydney, Australia.

Auckland

Keith Hill is a writer and filmmaker. Among his activities: He was founding director of Moving Image Centre, was a year-long Visiting Lecturer in Film at Ilam, was a tutor in Moving Image at Waikato Institute of Technology, has produced, edited, DP’d or directed numerous short films films that have screened around the world, and is a founding director of award-winning record label, Rattle Records. His television roles include Drama Editor on Korero Mai, and Story Producer on Lion Man. His debut novel, Blue Kisses, was published by Harper Collins in 1998, while his feature film, Blue Kisses, debuted in 2003. In 2006 he founded Attar Media to present books, music and films which explore humanist spirituality. Attar Film’s most recent production is a human rights documentary, Hidden Apartheid: A Report on caste Discrimination, produced in associated with Sapna.World Pictures. Keith has been exploring spiritual ideas and practices since 1975. He attended meetings of Abdullah Dougan’s group from then until 1987.

Wellington

Jessica Hubbard is an artist, writer and occasional curator based in Wellington. Jessica is particularly interested in the relationship of art with its cultural contexts. Jessica enjoys writing for the opportunity to delve into ideas and because she loves to string words and meaning into a glorious whole. Jessica co-edited the Dendromaniac edition of the Enjoy Occasional Journal and is Secretary for the Enjoy Trust.

Editor /Auckland

John Hurrell, EyeContact’s editor, is a New Zealand writer, artist and curator who was trained in painting at the University of Canterbury in the early seventies. In the eighties he was an art critic for The Press and Dominion Sunday Times, in the late nineties the curator at the Govett-Brewster in New Plymouth, and in the early part of this millenium the curator of contemporary and historic art at the Waikato Museum of Art and History Te Whare Taonga o Waikato. Hurrell has written catalogue essays on artists as varied as Julia Morison, Simon Morris, and David Clegg, and many articles for publications such as Art New Zealand, Art News, Australian Art Monthly, Australian Art Collector and Art World. His grid paintings of black-painted street-maps or polyurethane-coated noodles are in many national collections.

Whanganui

Peter Ireland was born in 1947 and works fulltime as a painter, based in Whanganui since 1995. While a student in the mid-1960s he became interested in photography (but never as a practitioner) and was part of the PhotoForum movement which began a decade later. Initially a collector and curator, he began writing about the medium regularly in the later 1970s. As an independent critic he is interested in imagery from 1820 to the present, the development of the medium’s history, and the issues surrounding it as they intersect with the wider art world and New Zealand’s effervescent culture. He retired from critical writing in November 2018.

Auckland

Emma Jameson is currently studying Masters in Art History at the University of Auckland. She has previously worked as an intern at the Auckland Art Gallery, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and as a Teaching Assistant and Research Scholar at the University. She was the 2014 EyeContact Artists Alliance Writing Intern.

Wellington

Sophie Jerram is an independent Wellington-based visual artist, curator and writer. With experience in business and communications she has a strong interest in interdisciplinary practice. In 2010 she founded Now Future, with composer Dugal McKinnon, a partnership instigating arts-led projects addressing issues in sustainability and ecology. She is the co-curator of the Letting Space series with Mark Amery. Sophie has written for Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Umelec International and The Dominion Post.

Wellington

Anna Knox is a Wellington-based writer. She has an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She writes fiction, non-fiction and travel pieces.

annaknox.com

Nelson

Thomas Pors Koed is the author of, most recently, No Relation (Titus Books, 2015).

Auckland

Kate Lee is currently studying Art History and Law at the University of Auckland. She has previously worked as an intern for Ocula and Bowerbank Ninow and as a curatorial assistant at Malcolm Smith Gallery.

Christchurch

Keir Leslie is an artist and writer based in Christchurch. He has a BFA in Sculpture, and a BA (Hons) in Art History, from the University of Canterbury

London

David Lillington is a freelance writer and curator. In 2012 he was Curatorial Advisor for Death: A Self-Portrait: the Richard Harris Collection at the Wellcome Collection, London, curated by Kate Forde. In January 2013 Wild Gift (Lillington and Rosie Cooper) presented ‘Dying on Screen: Artists’ Film and Video on Death’, also for the Wellcome. Publications include the book Sculpture Craft Magic Broccoli Glass Mariah Pyramid Stem, a collaboration with sculptor Rob Filby, initiated by Filby and funded by Arts Council England. He has contributed to many art magazines and catalogues for the last 20 years, and curated exhibitions since 1997.

Wellington

Claire is currently New Zealand Festival’s Writers Week coordinator and a freelance writer and editor. She is an art history and publishing graduate (University of Otago, Victoria University Wellington, Whitireia Polytechnic) and has worked for a variety of arts organisations and for academic publishers in Belgium (her home for a while). Claire is particularly interested in public art and in intersections between the publishing industry and the arts.

Her editorial website is www.wordnun.com

Brisbane

Tess Maunder is an independent curator and writer currently based in Brisbane, Australia. Maunder is the founding co-director of the online publication  The Maximilian with Laura Brown. The publication has an international readership and contributor network and in 2013, began a partnership with Manila-based DiscussionLab. Now the partnership has progressed into Approximating an editorial project between Hyphen (Yogyakarta), DiscussionLab (Manila), Art Barricade (New Delhi) and The Maximilian.

She currently writes for Art & Australia (Aus), Fillip (CA), The CuratorNotebook (US), Eyeline (AUS), Ocula (NZ), and EyeContact (NZ). Tess is interested in research concerning the Global South, south-south cooperation, contemporary art, post-internet art and contemporary curatorial practice.

Wellington

Celia is an enthusiastic dabbler in the spheres of art, music, and writing. She has a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design from Massey University and is currently based in Wellington. Celia frequently has opinions that she likes to think some people find entertaining, and hopes to continue to share these through writing, illustration, and loud conversation.

Auckland

Julian McKinnon is an Auckland based practising artist. Currently undertaking post-graduate study at Elam, his primary interest is painting (though he dabbles in such things as sculpture, photography, music, and on occasion he even delves into writing). In an alternate reality he works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory driving Mars rovers. His work can be viewed at: www.julianmckinnon.net

Auckland

David Mealing is an artist, teacher, curator and museum director possibly most known for his performance works in the seventies and eighties, and his role as museum director of Petone Settlers Museum (1984-2003).

Auckland

Luke Munn is a conceptual artist based in Auckland, using the body and
code, objects and performances to activate relationships and
responses. His projects have featured in the Kunsten Museum of Modern
Art, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Fold Gallery
London, Causey Contemporary Brooklyn and the Istanbul Contemporary Art
Museum, with commissions from Aotearoa Digital Arts, Creative New
Zealand and TERMINAL and performances in Paris, Dublin, Chicago,
Berlin, Auckland, and New York.

Christchurch

Lucy Ovenden is an emerging writer and curator. She has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History, and is based in Christchurch.

Auckland

Ralph Paine is an artist living in Auckland. He was a member of Artspace and Teststrip and is currently a member of The Reading Group and Yum Cha Club.

Wellington

Martin Patrick is an art critic and historian and Senior Lecturer of Critical Studies at Massey University. His writings have appeared internationally in such publications as Afterimage, Art Journal, Art Monthly, and Third Text. Two of his essays were recently published in One Day Sculpture, D. Cross and C. Doherty, eds. (2009). He has presented his research widely, including conferences in Los Angeles, Bristol, and Zagreb. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Illinois State University, and the Savannah College of Art and Design. He is working on a book that examines artists who engage with the art/life divide.

Christchurch

Andrew Paul Wood (b. Timaru, 1975) is a Christchurch based art writer/historian and curator. He was educated at the universities of Otago, Massey and Canterbury. He was written variously for The Press, Art New Zealand, Urbis, The New Zealand Listener and publications in Australia and the United States. He has completed a critical biography of the artist Theo Schoon, and gained a doctorate at Canterbury University on Canterbury’s ‘Pencil Case Painters’ during the 1990s. In 2008 he was awarded a Creative New Zealand professional development grant to travel to Europe (hosted in Germany by the Goethe-Institut and the German Federal Government) to look at strategies for developing art writing in New Zealand as part of the growth of New Zealand’s arts economy.

Auckland

Lance Pearce is an artist and writer based in Auckland. He holds a Master of Visual Art (First Class Honours) from AUT University.

Dunedin

Brendan Jon Philip is an artist, writer, and musician based in Dunedin. Drawing these distinct practices into a syncretic whole, he has exhibited, published and performed throughout New Zealand. He studied at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design and Elam School of Fine Arts, as well as receiving distinction in Film and Media Studies at the University of Otago.

Wellington

Priscilla Pitts has been writing about art since the late 1970s, with a particular interest in contemporary New Zealand work. She is a former director of Artspace, Auckland, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Dunedin Public Art Gallery and now freelances as a writer and exhibition curator.

Napier

Martin Poppelwell lives and works on the East Coast in Napier with his wife, Megan, and cat, Joan. He studied in the late 1980’s at Otago University before transferring to Elam School of Fine Arts in 1990. In 1996 an opportunity arose to continue studying Ceramic Design and Production at Whanganui Polytechnic with Ross Mitchell-Anyon. Martin has practiced as a full time artist since 1998.

Wellington

Julieanna Preston is a place-responsive live art performer and writer living in Ōtaki Beach and working as a MFA and PhD supervisor at College of Creative Arts, Massey University.

www.julieannapreston.space

Auckland

James Ross graduated with a BFA from Auckland University School of Fine Art in 1970, and since that time has exhibited widely in Australasia, Europe and the USA. He has been involved in several curatorial and book projects over the years. In February 2007 his exhibition The Red Studio (1982-2006) took place at The Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland and in September 2008 his exhibition Constructed Connections - Painting & Sculpture 1982-2008 took place at Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington. He has had exhibitions at Bath Street Gallery, Auckland in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Since 2004 he has worked between studios in Auckland and London.

Vietnam

Martin Rumsby has been active in the media arts in Australasia, North America and South East Asia since 1980. He has worked as a distributor/exhibitor of experimental films, has written about film as art and made over 100 short films and videos. Some of this work is available online through his self-named YouTube channel as well as on his page at Academia (edu). Rumsby currently lives in Vietnam.

Paris

Yasmine Ryan was a journalist for Al Jazeera English based in Doha, Qatar, a location a little different from her home town of Hamilton. She died tragically in Turkey in 2017. The publications she wrote for include The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, TakePart, The Listener, Scoop and Spasifik. Her complete profile is available at http://www.yasmine.org.nz/.

Auckland

Kari Schmidt has an LLB (Hons) and BA (Hons) in Art History from the University of Otago and the University of Victoria, respectively. She is interested in the nexus between art and the social, public and legal realms, having written her LLB dissertation on the conflict between Copyright Law and Appropriation Art, and her Art History dissertation on art and social change via the strategy of participation in New Zealand. She has recently co-curated the exhibition Fleshbag at the Skinroom in Hamilton (November, 2016) and is writing art criticism for EyeContact and Pantograph Punch. She works in the Local Government & Environment team at Simpson Grierson in Auckland and is the Publications Officer for the New Zealand Animal Law Association.

Nelson

Errol Shaw is a Nelson-based artist and writer and has a DipFA from Ilam School of Fine Arts and MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts. He was a former Suter Art Gallery guest curator and an art lecturer at NMIT.

Wellington

Richard Shepherd is an artist and writer based in Wellington. His work has appeared at the City Gallery, Wellington, Enjoy Gallery and at Pantograph-punch.com. He has an MFA from Massey University and teaches part time at Victoria University and Massey University.

Melbourne

Zara Sigglekow is working towards a MA in Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne. She holds a BA in Political Studies and Graduate Diploma in Art History. Previously in Auckland she curated a photography and moving image exhibition Presence and Absence and a pop up exhibition of Barcelona based artist Angus Collis.

Auckland

Allan Smith teaches at Elam School of Fine Arts. He has worked as Curator at City Gallery, Wellington; and Curator, Contemporary Art at Auckland Art Gallery. Publications include: “Bill Hammond’s Parlement of Foules”, in P. Armstrong and L. Simmons (eds.), Knowing Animals, Leiden, Brill 2007; “Stacks on the mill, more on still: Eve Armstrong and a short history on heaps, stacks and piles”, Artspace Vol I, Auckland 2008; “Shining and Vanishing: seen and unseen in the art of Leigh Martin”, Junctures, December 2010; “Peter Robinson’s Polystyrene Monoliths: Hegel, negation and how to levitate a minimalist object”, IMA, Brisbane 2011; “Xin Cheng: addressing the ‘parliament of things’ and helping in the kitchen,” distracted-reader #1, Mixtures: Xin Cheng and Allan Smith, Split/Fountain, Auckland 2013; and “What I learned from Momo: or, When is a house a stand of trees?”, in S. Andrew and J. Grace (eds.), Tell You What, Auckland University Press, 2014. His most recent essay, “Entropic Steps: rocks, ruin, and increase in John Ruskin, Robert Smithson, and Per Kirkeby”, won the best scholarly article prize in the AAANZ journal (Art Association of Australia and New Zealand) for 2013.

Auckland

Glen Snow is an artist with a studio practice based in Auckland. He has a BFA (Hon.) from the University of the Arts London (UAL) and graduated from the Masters in Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts in 2012. Glen has also been published as a writer and reviewer in Psychodynamic Practice journal, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. He currently teaches part-time at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design. In regard to his own work, his area of interest and research is with painting where material acts and doings are understood to be articulations of thought.

Dunedin

Franky is a Dunedin-based art writer, children’s writer and painter who has previously written art reviews for The Otago Daily Times. She holds a BA (Hons) in Art History and Art Theory and is currently planning post-grad study in the same field. Her research interests are wide-ranging but they tend to circle the nature and various philosophies of twentieth century art and representation. Most recently, this has meant her re-evaluating the value of Art Deco art and architecture in the shadow of the avant-garde.

Wellington

Alice Tappenden is a Wellington-based freelance writer, whose primary research interests are New Zealand photography and autobiographical Art History. She has studied Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Canterbury, Oxford University and Victoria University of Wellington. She currently works at Te Papa and is Deputy Chairperson of the Enjoy Public Art Gallery Trust.

Melbourne

Helen Thom is an independent arts writer and curator based in Melbourne, she has a Masters of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne and has worked in public institutions and as an art advisor.

Beijing

John B Turner, born in New Zealand in 1943 is, with Haruhiko Sameshima, a co-managing Editor of PhotoForum, founded in 1973. Retired, after 40 years of teaching photography at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, he now lives in Beijing, where he continues to write about historical and contemporary photography and make his own photographs. He is also working to help gain recognition and support for exemplary Chinese and New Zealand photographers, through facilitating exhibitions and publications. Some of this activity can be detected on his website:<www.jbt.photoshelter.com>. The first book of his own photographs, Te Atatu Me: photographs of an urban New Zealand village, will be published in 2015, fifty years after his first exhibition (with Barry Clothier) at Artides Art Gallery in Wellington in 1965.

Auckland

Claire Ulenberg is a curator and consultant. She has a Masters of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne, where she also worked at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has worked in various galleries in Australia, Aotearoa and Italy (Venezia Biennale). She is Curator of MESH Public Sculpture in Hamilton, and loves facilitating artists and working closely with them.

Auckland

Creon Upton’s doctoral thesis examined unanticipated sentimentalism in modernist literature, focusing on Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon - a novel arguably more post than modern, if anyone cared enough to argue it. He used to live in Christchurch  but now he lives in Auckland doing legal work. In a school report Creon’s work habits were described as “spasmodic”. The same might be said of his art reviewing. He writes occasionally but sincerely, seeming to follow the advice of his maternal grandmother that if he has nothing good to say he should say nothing at all.

London

Sonja van Kerkhoff, born in Hawera, Taranaki, is an artist who also curates, writes reviews, and gives lectures on art and media theory. She started out with a diploma in Fine Arts (Otago, 1982) and then moved to the Netherlands in 1989. Sonja graduated in 1993 with a Masters equivalent in video, performance + sculpture from the Maastricht School of Visual Arts and worked part time for Dutch educational broadcasting as a multi-media designer. She completed a Masters in Media Technology from Leiden university in 2008. In 2000 she was the Tylee Cottage artist-in-residence at the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui. 

Auckland

Daniel Webby is a committed dilettante with an interest in conversation as a means and an end, in the exploration of intensities, of and between, people, places and things.

Mexico City

Rebecca Wilson is a freelance editor and writer from New Zealand who has lived in Mexico City since 2009. She was previously Assistant Curator/Hirschfeld Gallery Curator at City Gallery Wellington and Publications Manager at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), London, a visual arts organisation dedicated to the exploration of cultural difference. Her recent editorial projects include Francis Alÿs’s book In a Given Situation.