Pruebas de desgaste

“O bird that found and fashioned me, that brought me from the land safe in her singing cage of bone,

the webbed wings of her hand.

O bird that was my vision, my love, my dream that flew over the famine-folded rocks,

the sky’s reflected snow.

She took me to the topmost air, curled in the atom of her eye,

and there I saw an island rise out of the empty sea.

And falling there she set me down naked on soil that knew no plough,

and loveless, speechless, I beheld the world’s beginning grow.

And there I slew her for my bread and in her feathers dressed; and there I raised a paradise from the seed in her dead breast”

(Laurie Lee 1983, p.32)

Figure 26: Keli. J. (2017). WAI

Wahine. [Digital Photograph].

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The WAI collective grew from a seed of hope. It has become a space of protection,

solidarity, connection, and social justice for those who choose to participate. This chapter offers a description of some of the art making understandings and approaches of the collective. It unpacks the ongoing written reflections recorded as data and creates a thematic discussion using photographs taken of both process and exhibition work. These reflections and art works are analysed to offer insight into the WAI collective’s way of functioning and understanding which directly informs my personal body of artwork

described in Chapter 7. The WAI guide books (see Appendices A, B, and C) offer a far more in depth interpretation of the practical everyday functioning of the collective.

An overview

The Palmerston North WAI collective (WAI PN) has continued to function since its instigation as part of my Masters in Māori Visual Art in 2013. The original members remain, for the most part, and new women have joined us each year. The WAI PN collective have 35 members who interact with us in a wide range of ways. These include online interaction, and kanohi ki kanohi (face to face) engagement. Working within an established collective offers benefits and also difficulties.

WAI PN know each other well now. We know what people like to make, we know the stories women have shared with us, and we enjoy each other as artists, friends and collective members. We have developed relationships which include a sense of belonging and

support. WAI PN are in constant contact via text and our secret Facebook page and we meet weekly to make art, talk, and share nourishment – both physical and spiritual.

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Maintaining the WAI collective into the future is part of the kaupapa of this research. Being a collective means membership and participation must be offered in an ongoing way – it is inclusive. The difficulties with this are that the collective may grow so large that it becomes impossible to provide enough space and resources, or to show all of the works that

members may wish to exhibit. WAI PN offer this research the opportunity to analyse the WAI model of practice further down the track and to address concerns that arise within an established dynamic. Questions around how newcomers can integrate safely into an established collective, how resources are managed, and how to accommodate the ever widening range of skill levels into a coherent exhibition offer new insights and a way

forward. WAI PN also provide an established paradigm from which to establish the new WAI collectives and to understand better the differences that facilitators, members and regions bring to this model, and those things that remain constant. Reflections made on these aspects of the collective have been, and will continue to be, incorporated into our collective guide books in an ongoing manner (see Appendices A, B, and C).

Figure 27: (2015). WAI at the Domestic Violence Protest

March, Wellington. [Digital Photograph].

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Key to the maintenance and development of the WAI kaupapa and collective practice are several elements. These include: relationships; the use of te reo Māori, and practices and approaches which respect Māori knowledge and ways of working together; a Response Based Practice approach; our WAI way of ‘flipping deficits’; and clear and fluent

communication. Only some of these reflections are included in this document as they are knowledge which continues to be described and developed in consultation with the collective, and which is being continually updated in the guidebooks.

Regional collectives

As part of this PhD research three Women’s Refuges in the Marlborough and Wellington regions were approached to offer opportunities to instigate WAI collectives. The refuges chosen all have robust and applied understandings of the Response Based Practice approach to working with ‘victims’ of violence, and they have been provided with both agency and facilitator guide books which outline the WAI art making approach developed by the Palmerston North collective. All three refuges consented to begin the set up process, with support to access the required funding. The desire to instigate a WAI artmaking collective, by those working in the domestic violence field, evidences the perceived value, relevance, applicability and usefulness of the WAI model of practice. This instigation process began in 2015. It was originally intended that the collectives would be set up and the research into this trial process would begin in 2016. This process would offer perspectives on how/ if the WAI model of practice could translate across difference in place and people. The knowledge gathered would then be reflected in the PhD personal art making outcomes.

As a community outsider to the Wellington and Marlborough regions, applying for the necessary funding was a complex and difficult undertaking, which markedly extended the anticipated timeframe for the set up process. The funding process was further complicated by some funder assumptions that an art based collective of women who have experienced violence must come under the category of mental health, or art therapy, and may therefore

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not be eligible for ‘normal’ arts funding - offering yet another example of how women who have experienced violence are stereotyped, and further supporting many of the arguments made in previous chapters. Regional variations in the understood languaging of funding applications has also effected this process. WAI PN have been fortunate that Palmerston North Creative Community funding forums offer an opportunity for applicants to speak to their applications. The questions raised about the ‘therapeutic’ nature of our WAI PN collective have been able to be addressed face to face, and clarity around our applications given. It has been much more difficult to clarify the specific approach that WAI undertakes in a written application, for regions outside of my local community, without the opportunity to address the stereotypes which connect art and abused women, and the implicit

understandings within these.

Wellington Women’s Refuge (WWR) and Te Whare Roki Roki (TWRR) Māori Women’s Refuge in Wellington chose to work together to instigate a joint WAI collective. This is a way of working that has been effective for these refuges in implementing their women’s

education programmes. In late 2016, after 18 months of unsuccessfully attempting to find funding WWR and TWRR took an immense leap of faith in appointing a paid WAI facilitator, to take over their funding applications, and begin the set up process. Passing over this responsibility to someone who understands and knows how to approach the Wellington arts and funding community was an immense relief. While I did not manage to access any

funding for the Wellington WAI collective their new facilitator has. As my role in WAI PN has always been voluntary I was very grateful to see that these refuges had also chosen to acknowledge the time requirement for their facilitator and accessed 25 hours per week of funding for this role, in the short term. Marlborough Women’s Refuge and Sexual Abuse Resource Centre (MWRSARC) in Blenheim have taken a different approach, waiting until I had accessed funding on their behalf before electing to approach a facilitator and begin the set up process for their collective. Their ambition is that their facilitator will also be paid, or given a koha (contribution), for the role.

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As the route into setting up the WAI collective is not a prescribed one, more a ‘described’ one, this process can be a little daunting. The kaupapa or ground is offered, but the whare (house) built on it is one designed by the individuals in each collective – something which offers autonomy but can also be intimidating. Early conversations with each facilitator offered assurance that the collectives belonged to those involved and should therefore operate in ways that made sense to their community requirements and aspirations. As I have a very ‘hands off’ approach to these outside collectives I rely heavily on those involved working out who they are and what they want for themselves. This approach has worked well with WAI PN but it has taken some time and reflection to understand our way of doing things and being together. Our kawa (which can be translated as our ways of doing things) were not written until our third year of operation.

I have stressed the importance to the new WAI facilitators of just being together and making art, and allowing the collective to grow into itself. It took WAI PN at least a year to become coherent in who we were and much longer to establish a real collective dynamic – and much of that was my learning. I acknowledge that this organic methodology does not make for a simple or formulaic implementation – it is more of a problem solving approach which requires a great deal of reflection and competence, but both current facilitators will readily manage this. The difficulties noted to date have had more to do with the different spaces that art collectives and social work programmes inhabit, and the understandings that the collective members, the facilitators (as artists and insiders to violence) and the refuges (as providers of advocacy and education, but also quite often insiders also) bring to this shared space. It will be interesting to see the differing progressions down the track. I am already excited by the innovative approaches being taken to starting out. The WAI Wellington facilitator has stepped into her role with an initial focus on participating in a global star weaving project - The Million Stars to End Violence. This has meant she has hit the ground running, with immediate media coverage and a public profile for the Wellington WAI collective – something which took a long time for WAI PN to build up. It has been a very judicious start – with all media information and handouts provided for participants WAI Wellington has been able to capitalise on the professionalism and organisation of the

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venture itself to promote their trial collective. While this approach has been a clever way of creating an immediate public profile (important for future funding) it has challenged the collective ethos. New collective members can easily be put off if the decision making process and opportunities for autonomy are taken from them. The facilitator of the Blenheim WAI collective, has taken a different approach, thinking ahead to the process of establishing a sturdy collective relationship between those involved and to creating

potential end of year exhibition works. I believe both methods can work over time, and they will change as the collective dynamic develops and members take ownership of their

kaupapa. They will be successful because those implementing them believe in them and want to see their collectives prosper.

The set-up process has taken almost two years for these refuges, from the initial approach to the collectives being up and running. This aspect of sharing the model of practice has required a tenacious and determined attitude from all of us. It has been clear that access to adequate funding has had an enormous bearing on the ability of the refuges to instigate their collectives. Adjacent to this has been the difficulty of inadequate time for all involved. The core business of each independent Women’s Refuge is crisis intervention and this must take precedence over post-crisis interventions – no matter how much they mean to those who participate, or how keen staff and governance boards are to implement new initiatives. Staff at refuges are constantly under physical, emotional, financial, and time-based pressure when working to ensure safety, advocacy, and education for women and children.

Analysing the ongoing progress and mentoring the process of these two new WAI collectives when they have only just been set up, three years in, is no longer something that this

research aspires to – it would be nearly impossible to do given the limited timeframe before the research is due to be completed. Instead an overview is offered, for the purposes of grounding the kaupapa. As the purpose of this research was to create a model of practice that would translate across regional and facilitator differences, the ongoing mentoring and reflections post-PhD will continue to be disseminated as adaptations within the WAI

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guidebooks, thus ensuring integrity and flexibility and an accurate reflection of practice for future participants. While the initial trajectory of the research has altered, the time that would have been spent on mentoring and supporting the new regional collectives has instead been spent refining, deeply reflecting on, and unpacking the knowledge in the WAI Palmerston North collective. This unexpected research method has offered a richer, more in depth model of practice, and knowledge that is firmly grounded in who we are, which has developed through an ongoing process of robust consultation within our community.

WAI PN art making: process and techniques.

This section describes key elements of our WAI PN art making which have been recorded through the research process, and which are presented as the research data. Described are some of the processes, themes, and symbols that have become evident across the nearly six years we have worked together as an art making collective for social justice.

WAI offer ways for women to make art that has dignity, as much as our collective kaupapa seeks to uphold their dignity personally. The purpose of our collective is not to turn out fabulous artists (although we have many of those). It is instead to ensure that any woman, whatever her experience or skill level, can make work that self-represents her responses to violence in a professional, polished way that will be taken seriously by viewers if she

chooses to exhibit.

The very process of art making at WAI is dignifying. Women work across a wide range of media and concepts. They have the autonomy to makes choices every time they walk in the door, and the collective supports these differences wholeheartedly. Playing and messes are embraced as effective learning strategies. Sharing of knowledge, skills and techniques occurs across the collective constantly. Our interactions are focused around our art making processes so they are natural and relaxed, especially for newcomers who may feel nervous about what is expected of them in this space. When discoveries are made, or works are

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successful members rejoice and take an interest. The WAI art making environment is rich, inspiring, supportive, and dignifying because of the kaupapa we have developed as a collective. If we view the role of making as a way to “give life to things, but also to show evidence of life within us, perhaps also at a spiritual level” (Charny, 2011, p.43) we can see the life we give to these very different narratives. Our making evidences our resistance, growth, and identities, our ways of being, and the collective and individual ways of working we have developed. The WAI collective approach offers a standpoint against the therapy based discourse of ‘helping victims’ through art making. It challenges common deficit-based conceptions and ways of working often framed within the mental health field, and social services.

The Art Making Outcomes

Using a multi-faceted research methodology which analyses artwork as social justice

responses to violence allows for a paradigm shift in the outcomes which may be anticipated. This research does not seek to identify the effects or impacts of violence on the maker through the vehicle of their artworks. It does not record the health benefits of art making in this setting, or identify the healing that has occurred for participants - it does not offer up well people in exchange for those who were identified as unwell previously. The WAI outcomes within this research are the collective and individual artworks, the processes, and the model of practice created within this different approach to ‘post-crisis’ art making. The outcomes discussed in this section are analysed as social responses and discussed in

categories that have naturally developed within the collective. These outcomes inform both the imagery and the approach taken in my personal body of PhD artwork, the clarity of light exhibition, discussed in Chapter seven.

It is important to note here that analyses of the artwork of ‘trauma survivors’ are often constructed through a therapeutic lens, with an inherent focus on the effects of violence on the art makers’ wellbeing, psyche, or development, and a focus on the journey to ‘healing’ Referring to the interviewer and art maker as ‘therapist’ and ‘client’ within a study also establishes a power dynamic and assigns understandings that further marginalise those

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being researched. Some studies, such as that by Eisenbach, Snir, & Regev (2015), have analysed artworks by interviewing the makers about their experiences of ‘trauma’, without ascertaining their personal understandings of the symbols they have chosen to use within the works. It is stated in the study by Eisenbach et al that “it would also be of value to ask the participants about the symbols in their works” (p.55), however because of the

“considerable vulnerability” (p.55) of these women this opportunity was not given. What is most interesting is that these voluntary participants were interviewed about their traumatic experiences and the place of art in their lives, and their art work was analysed by two ‘judges’ described as “experienced art therapists” (p.46), but the opportunity to speak to the symbols, which may have offered these women dignity and demonstrated their resistance, was considered too risky.

The WAI artworks offer visual representation of the threads of understanding that are held within the WAI Spirographic model of practice identified through this research, in Chapter Five. Below, a selected body of works from across the time that WAI PN have run

demonstrate the way that we have developed of challenging many of the negative