24 September 2020
Join us on Thursday 24 September 2020 at 8am NZST for the second OPEN HALL; a public Town Hall meeting.
Email to register and receive the zoom link.
Town Hall Art School
Saturday 6 March 2021
4.00pm NZT
2.00pm AET
7.00pm PST (Friday 5 March)
10.00pm EST (Friday 5 March)
Town Hall is excited to invite you to our third Art School event.
Art School is a monthly online event that offers a platform for artists and writers to discuss their current research and art thinking.
Join us for the launch of Fiona Connor's monograph, +1 310 951 9459, with contributors Sarah Lehrer Graiwer, Travis Diehl, Jan Bryant, and Kimberli Meyer.
For the zoom link or any questions please email: artschool@town-hall.net
Each writer will reflect on the process of writing their essay, with a follow up response to what it was like to see it in the context of the finished publication.
The conversation will be hosted by Gwynn Porter. Warren Olds and Felix Henning-Tapley will be available to discuss the thinking behind the design concept.
Fiona Connor, +1 310 951 9459 is published and distributed by June 20th.
Town Hall Open Hall
Wednesday 9 December 2020
at 7.30pm NZT
Join us for a special Open Hall hot question session to collectively think through recent events in Aotearoa’s art world, and address the structural problems that lay at its core.
The parameters of the conversation and special responders to be announced.
Moderated by Ngahuia Harrison, Sarah Hopkinson, and Shannon Te Ao.
All welcome. For the zoom link and or questions please email ... or get in touch with any Town Hall member.
* If you have attended a previous Open Hall session, you will automatically receive the link via email in advance of the meeting.
Cupid <3_Paul P. + Peter Derksen
The following text is the first part of a conversation between artists Paul P. (Canada) and Peter Derksen (Aotearoa New Zealand). Their correspondence has been matchmade by Town Hall and is the first instance of our Cupid <3 pairings. Their conversation began in October 2020 and runs parallel to the exhibition, As long as you want, presented at Michael Lett Gallery and featuring Paul P. and Kate Newby. They speak on archives, queerness, and the difficult-to-reach lineages of the past, among other things.
Text available to download here.
OPEN HALL MINUTES
Minutes from the first two Open Hall
meetings are available to download:
13 August 2020
24 September 2020
5 November 2020
Town Hall is excited to invite you to the launch of Art School.
Art School is a monthly online event that offers a platform for artists and writers to discuss their current research and art thinking.
The first Art School event takes place Thursday 5 November 2020 at 06:00PM AET / 08:00PM NZT.
Join us, the author, and some of the subjects, to launch and discuss Jan Bryant's new book:
Art in the Age of Global Capitalism: Philosophy, Politics and Visual Practices
, published by Edinburgh University Press.
Email to register and receive the zoom link.
29 October 2020
Join us on Thursday 29 October 2020 at 8am NZST for the third OPEN HALL; a public Town Hall meeting.
Email to register and receive the zoom link.
24 September 2020
Join us on Thursday 24 September 2020 at 8am NZST for the second OPEN HALL; a public Town Hall meeting.
Email to register and receive the zoom link.
13 August 2020
Join us on Thursday 13 August 2020* at 8am NZST for OPEN HALL; a public Town Hall meeting.
Over the last three-months Town Hall has gathered in its virtual quarters every Tuesday morning at 8 am (NZST); the only agreeable time between the multiple zones of the group’s members. These weekly meetings have become forums for discussing the nature and possibilities of art and its agency, as we attempt to develop Town Hall as a collective and platform that is of use in this current moment.
Our meetings follow a simple structure: each week a different member asks a Hot Question (e.g. “Who is your audience?” or “Is systemic change/ transformation possible from inside institutional structures?”). The question is not disclosed in advance, so absorbed and answered in an informal conversation.
Open Hall takes the Hot Question session public… This is an invitation to share what is churning around in your mind, right now.
Open Hall is a pilot or test-of-concept: to keep it at a manageable size the first 30 or so guests to register via email will be sent the zoom link.
* 13 August falls in the Tangaroa phase of the Maramataka; a time for productive, positive, and fruitful energy. Bring it!
29 June 2020
"The silos have tipped over and grain is self-seeding, the calf-eteria is full to the brim, come suckle at the teat!"
Town Hall is dedicated to the formation, sharing, and circulation of contemporary art and ideas. Part journal, part aggregator, part publishing imprint, part working group, Town Hall’s aim is to support the building and re-building of a critical context for contemporary practice. The image of the scaffold was chosen for Town Hall as a support structure that a range of activities can be hinged off, some online and some irl. These things will be collated on this website.
Town Hall is stubbornly artist-led, and initiated and organised by a collective. The project, founded in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 2020, is the result of many conversations with friends about finding new ways of working. Our collaborators include but are not limited to:
Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua, David Bennewith, Jan Bryant, Ruth Buchanan, Fiona Connor, Henry Davidson, Felix Henning-Tapley, Sarah Hopkinson, Kate Newby, Ammon Ngakuru, Warren Olds, Meg Porteous, Laura Preston, Bridget Riggir-Cuddy, Shannon Te Ao, etc.