Author(s): Mark Amery (Editor); Amber Clausner (Editor); Sophie Jerram (Editor)

Art | Aotearoa | Politics

The story of a remarkable art activation. After first occupying vacant spaces in post-stock-market-crash Auckland in the mid-1990s, public art curators Letting Space re-emerged in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Confronted by the thin net of social welfare, the waste of the capitalist system and the climate emergency, it brokered spaces for artists to think and act radically, outside gallery walls.

This book chronicles the projects those artists drove. From a grocery store where everything was free to an ATM for depositing moods and a citizens' water-testing lab, they added to the civic dialogue at a time when public space and media were increasingly commodified and under surveillance.

Written by leading New Zealand writers and thinkers, including Pip Adam and Chris Kraus, Urgent Moments demonstrates the vital role artists can play in thepressing discussions of our times.

Contents: Open Call Chris Kraus The Time Travellers Pip Adam Before 2010 Reality Pitch Popular Archaeology: Cassette, c.1967-94 Dugal McKinnon Free Store Kim Paton Beneficiary's Office Tao Wells Taking Stock Eve Armstrong 2011 Shopfront Suburban Floral Association The Market Testament Colin Hodson Pioneer City Bronwyn Holloway-Smith 2012 Free of Charge Julian Priest Productive Bodies Mark Harvey The Public Fountain & D.A.N.C.E. FM 106.7 Tim Barlow & D.A.N.C.E. Art Club Open Plan: An Art Party Urban Dream Brokerage 2012-18 2013 Studio Channel Art Fair Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa 2013 2014 Please Give Generously Judy Darragh Te Ika-a-Akoranga Bronwyn Holloway -Smith 2015 Moodbank Wynyard Vanessa Crowe Projected Fields Siv B. Fjaerestad Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa 2015 2016 2017 Groundwater: Common Ground Arts Festival Unsettled Rana Haddad & Pascal Hachem Our Future Masterton - Ahutahi ki mua After Human First, Artist Second Mark Amery and Sophie Jerram, Shifting the Urgency Zara Stanhope, Project notes Note on the text, Acknowledgements, Image credits, About the contributors

Author Biography:

 MARK AMERY is a writer, producer, curator and facilitator working across the public arts and media, with a focus on new forms of participation. Co-founder of Letting Space, Paekakariki.nz and Paekakariki 88.2FM, Amery works at Radio New Zealand and as a contributing arts editor for the Dominion-Post. He is a member of the Wellington City Council Public Art Panel and recently completed a public art project with Wellington social housing residents.

AMBER CLAUSNER is a British artist, writer and events co-ordinator who lives in Te Whanganui-a-tara Wellington, Aotearoa, where she is a facilitator at an artist-run space and a member of Shared Lines Collaborative. Her art practice investigates human connection to the non-human world.

SOPHIE JERRAM works with artists and communities between university, government and community roles. Her research focuses on how shared space and time are important actors in community landscapes.