Common Knowledge: An Open Conversation

Please join us for Common Knowledge: an open conversation on libraries, learning and public space.

Including responses from artists Kerry Ann Lee and Aliyah Winter, and writers Kirsty Baker, Hanahiva Rose and Jane Wallace, this informal discussion led by communications and publications manager Simon Gennard centres on the ethics and possibilities of public spaces for reading, research and dialogue.

Enjoy’s upcoming relocation, and the establishment of a new reading room and multi-use space, prompts a need to discuss and reflect on this resource with our community. Enjoy has been collecting artists’ publications and ephemera since the organisation was founded in 2000.

Comprised mostly of donations from artists, writers and curators, and exchanges with other contemporary art spaces around Aotearoa, Enjoy’s library offers a unique, but patchy, micro-history of two decades of contemporary practice.

This moment of transition allows us to reconsider how people access and engage with these resources. With our community, we’re asking ourselves a set of questions, regarding:
- who is Enjoy’s library for?
- what does Enjoy’s community need from a space like this?
- how might people use a space for research, reading and conversation?
- how might we begin to build a responsive and dynamic collection with limited resources?

This conversation is part of Until further notice: A transitional programme. From the beginning of May, Enjoy will temporarily operate in a different way. Our built-in office and storage at 1/147 Cuba Street will be dismantled and rearranged as we pause the exhibition programme to establish a flexible space for work, discussion and gathering.

As our team prepares for Enjoy’s upcoming relocation later this year, we will be hosting a selection of public events, workshops and working bees. Driven by both the practical considerations of this transition as well as a desire to fully embrace the possibilities of this moment, Until further notice embraces the new series of social relations a change such as this introduces, asking new questions and demanding different ways of working. Read more about Until further notice at enjoy.org.nz.

Coffee for this event has been generously provided by our sponsors Rich Coffee Roasters.