Oral Histories: Women's Art Archives, artist interviews

Women’s Art Archive project (WAA) History

The Women’s Art Archive was initiated by Ian Hunter, Acting Director of the National Art Gallery, in association with artist Eva Yuen, and established by Hunter in Wellington in 1979.

Through a TEP scheme and with guidance from Ian Hunter, Janice Antill and Lindley Turnbull were employed to establish the WAA archive.
 
The work included collecting exhibition reviews, catalogues, invitations and general information relating to exhibitions held throughout New Zealand. They also compiled lists of books and journals, an art index to periodicals, information on women's organisations and women's studies in New Zealand, were also collected.
 
In December 1982 Ian Hunter organised Fi - the first national, alternative art event to be held in a factory in Wellington, New Zealand.

Hunter invited participating artist and lecturer, Vivian Lynn and participating artist and writer, Barbara Strathdee, to organise a two day conference for women sculptors from across New Zealand during the event.  At Hunter’s suggestion, Lita Barrie, a person unknown to the art community, sat in with them.

The major desire expressed by women at the conference was to pursue establishing an audio-tape and slide archive of artists work. Lynn, consulted with Hunter.

In early 1983, Wellington Vivian Lynn, volunteered to take up the position of coordinator of the archive, aiming to facilitate the production of a library of taped interviews and slide images of work covering 50 artists who represented the burgeoning women’s art movement in New Zealand. When Lynn travelled to Australia with Hunter and the Anzart contingent a month later, she consulted with the Australian Women’s Art Archive coordinator, Bonita Ely in Sydney.

Everything was in place for a six month resolution of the tape image project.
Lynn’s successful applications to the Women’s Affairs Department and Queen Elizabeth 11 Arts Council, enabled her to finance slides of work from artists, purchase a tape recorder and fund Lita Barrie as interviewer to travel through New Zealand to record the interviews with artists and compile an index of the interviews. During 1983, Barrie, in consultation with Lynn, prepared herself with the skills and knowledge to undertake the work, the following year.

After 1980 the archive remained in abeyance until early 1983. In 1985 the archive was deposited with the National Art Gallery.

Note: The Auckland Art Gallery also hold copies of the interviews with 59 of the women artists and a recording of two panel discussions on women's art in New Zealand.