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Tiny Fest engages with the idea of a festival that cares through the delivery of a dispersed programme as a process of constant conversation between arts makers and viewers. We have been asking ourselves “what can a festival be?” and “what a caring curatorial practice could look like?” and, this year, have piloted a series of community activities throughout the year, culminating in the festival weekend in November.
Do you have stories of your community that you would like to share with/through Tiny?
Tiny Rooms, co-led by Tiny Fest and The White Room Creative Space.
Activation duration: Feb – June 2024
Supported by Whakahoa Whakawatea Tangata Holdsworth Creative Spaces Fellowship 2023, this reciprocal incubator invited TWR artists to engage with Tiny Fest by exploring the idea of co-curation.
As the artists connected, a theme began to emerge around the idea of labelling, clearly connected to engaging with a library but one that also resonated with the artist’s own experiences. Discussions around labelling included how it can be both a positive and
a negative action, and that being the person doing the labelling puts one in a position of power and control. This was explored further through a video performance, where a conveyor system was set up and a diverse range of objects was passed along and labelled.
Come visit Tiny Rooms Label Factory at Tiny Fest 2024.
The White Room Artists:
Merna Fam
Isaac Tait
Ben Morris
Matthew Swaffield
Blaire Rosie-Forrester
Simon Gray
Tiny Fest Crew:
Artistic Director and Manaakitanga: Janaína Moraes
Movement Tutor: Bea Gladding
Documentation: Jack McConnell
Tiny Concert, supporting Noel Meek’s SOUNZ Community Commission 2023/2024.
Activation in: May 2024
A composition for librarians, library collection, and library.
In partnership with composer Noel Meek for his SOUNZ Community Commission, How Libraries Think (2024) was composed by Noel Meek and performed by staff of Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi.
It was a unique concert that employed non-professional musicians to explore the human and non-human relationships between the diverse staff of Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi, their varied library collections, and the central building they work from, Tūranga.
Noel Meek is a Pākehā musician, composer, and artist based in Ōtautahi. His works explore through performance a form for radical care, where care is applied in new and unusual places, honouring the sovereignty of all things, human or otherwise.
Meek has performed extensively internationally and throughout Aotearoa. He has presented works with The Adam Art Gallery, The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, St Paul St Gallery, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, SCAPE Public Art, Circuit, and The Len Lye Foundation. He currently sits on the programming board of CoCA Toi Moroki. He has taught workshops with the Christchurch Art Gallery, the New Zealand School of Music, and the Massey College of Creative Arts.
Tiny Residency, co-led by Tiny Fest and Mana Tipua Mana Ora.
Residency duration: July – November 2024
Supported by Christchurch City Council Creative Community Scheme 2024, the Tiny Residency is part of our Takatāpui Community Activation Scheme. Two takatāpui artists, Lyss Cave and Maia Wood, have been hosted as artists in residence for a series of encounters with Mana Tipua Mana Ora’s Rangatahi community. Since Matariki, they have been running workshops on Kakahu (clothing) Alteration and World Building for Kool Kuntz as together they expelore a world of wonder and curiosity with undertones of weird and magic.
Their kaupapa can be experienced at Tiny Fest in November through the Cryptid Crybz tent on the Floor 1 of the library in an interactive installation and pocket dimension that holds space specifically catered to Takatāpui youth.
Tiny Conversations, in partnership with ECAMAR Ōtautahi and Instituto Bantu Brasil
Activation in: September 2024
After our first public Tiny Activation, audience members were inspired to share more about what moves them in the communities they are a part of. That’s how we connected with Capoeira School ECAMAR Ōtautahi and dreamed together in hosting a performance-conversation with Mestre Roxinho (Itaparica/Brasil). In this embodied conversation about Capoeira Angola, Mr. Roxinho shared stories, songs and the ancestral worldview of Capoeira Angola. In its crossing relations of afro-brazilian and indigenous cosmogonies, we came together to learn about this practice that is rooted in movement and is a pathway to foster social transformation.
Mestre Roxinho is Capoeirista for 44 years and the founder of Instituto Cultural Bantu. His long experience with social education through Capoeira Angola has spread roots of the African knowledge across Brazil, Australia, Philippines, Aotearoa and the States.
This Tiny Community Activation raised awareness of Instituto Bantu’s practice in the treatment of trauma, rehabilitation and social insertion of children and teenagers in situations of vulnerability and violence.
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