At The Pantograph Punch, our partnerships with arts organisations are a critical part of the work we do. In this time of uncertainty, with arts organisations' budgets stretched across the board (including ours) we're hugely grateful to our partner organisations who continue to contribute to the development of arts writing in Aotearoa.

Our partnerships take many different forms with a diverse range of results: writing in response to art; intensive or extended critical writing workshops; and contextual theatre programme essays.

Today we're thrilled to announce a new partnership between The Pantograph Punch and Gus Fisher Gallery. We’re coming together to create an exciting mini writing residency, and expressions of interest are now open.

The writing residency will take place during the exhibition The Medium is the Message at Gus Fisher Gallery from August 1 - October 17 2020. During the two-week residency, the selected writer in residence will have the freedom to engage with and respond to ideas explored in the exhibition, and the final piece of writing will be published on The Pantograph Punch. We're really excited by the potential of a writer being able to work on site at the exhibition, and the depth that will bring to the writer's experience of the work and their response. Writers will need to be Auckland-based.

The exhibition: The Medium is The Message

Gus Fisher Gallery’s building has a fascinating history. Opening in 1935, the Grade I-listed heritage building was Aotearoa’s first purpose built radio station as Radio 1YA. It was then later refitted for television and was the site of the first official public broadcast on June 1st 1960. This exhibition, The Medium is the Message, marks sixty years of television broadcasting from the former TVNZ Shortland Street Studios and brings together pivotal work by international and New Zealand-based artists with rare archival footage to celebrate this important milestone in our shared history.

Informed by the experimental practice of Nam June Paik, dubbed the father of video art, Gus Fisher Gallery’s exhibition proposes a line of continuity from the 1960s to the present day that both celebrates and problematises our much loved relationship with broadcasting. From 1960s footage of iconic television shows like C’Mon and the famous Telethons, to contemporary artist meditations on soap operas and news bulletins, Gus Fisher Gallery will be reconnecting with its roots and inviting us into a world of broadcasting that investigates the power of television now and then.

The Residency

Gus Fisher Gallery and The Pantograph Punch are interested in working in fresh and experimental ways. The writer in residence will have full access to the exhibition’s content, with prior access to archival footage and research material gathered by the gallery team. They will be able to work in any method desired, with a remit to make an element of their research, writing or on-site activation, available for public access and engagement throughout the residency duration.

With this residency, we hope to appeal to writers who may want to interrogate new creative responses to current methods of broadcasting and knowledge dissemination, acknowledging the role of television in 2020 amongst a plethora of other mediums. Writers may wish to engage in real time new stories or pursue an explorative response to television’s role in New Zealand – the medium is the message.

This mini writing residency includes:

• A stipend of $2000 for 2 weeks full-time. (Alternatively, this can be part time, spread over the period of a month)
• A desk at Gus Fisher Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau
• Editorial support from The Pantograph Punch team to develop your work
• Publication and promotion with The Pantograph Punch

To apply for this opportunity, please get in touch with:

• A brief bio
• 2-3 writing samples, or links to previous writing
• A pitch that outlines why you’d like to take part, and how you might like to respond to the exhibition during the residency. This may change and develop of course – initial ideas are fine!
• Your preferred dates (this can be undertaken anytime between August 1 and September 15 2020)

Applications close Friday 26 June. The selected writer will be chosen by a panel from The Pantograph Punch and Gus Fisher Gallery.

Please send your expressions of interest to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Gus Fisher x Pantograph Punch’. We look forward to hearing from you!

Header image: Shortland Street Studios, 1968. Photograph by Alexis J. Favenchi, courtesy of Tony Moore and Gus Fisher Gallery