Poet and activist Heather McPherson (1942-2017) founded Spiral almost 50 years ago, to present women’s writing and images ‘positively’ and cover an amalgam of arts. Heather McPherson, by Allie Eagle
You can help us continue our mahi for another 50 years!
We're not actively fund-raising at present but we have two ongoing programmes you can awhi! We'd love that.
Development
Good things take time. Also, money. Check out our projects that need Development Awhi, below.
eBooks
Our latest good things! Check out our eBooks series for some excellent reading!
MORE ABOUT US
Best known as publisher of Keri Hulme’s Booker Prize-winning the bone people, we awhi the legacy and practice of women’s storytelling in Aotearoa and make some of it accessible to all, through
—Publications (from Patricia Grace’s The Kuia & the Spider and Te Kuia me te Pūngāwerewere to our current eBook programme)
—Events (like the #DirectedByWomen film and webseries screenings, often in association with the international Directed by Women project and always accompanied by discussion, including — at Parliament — human rights-related screenings of Ava DuVernay's 13th, about mass incarceration; RouzieHassanova'sRadiogram, about Bulgaria; Auckland Women's Community Video's Even Dogs Are Given Bonesand Kathleen Winter's Minimum about low-paid women's working conditions; and Wanuri Kahiu's Rafiki, censored for its gay content in Kenya; and in conjunction with themed multimedia exhibitions, from Mothers, Women & Violence, Māori Women's Art, Women & Violence and others at the Women's Gallery in the past, to more recently This Joyous, Chaotic Place: He Waiata Tangi-ā-Tahu at Mokopōpaki, about Heather McPherson and her peers.)
—Lending Spiral Collectives' imprint to other collectives as an umbrella for storytelling that contributes to a more inclusive literature (like Kim Hunt's crime fiction)
—Film (from video oral histories to Sister Galvan, a feature documentary about gay writer and arts administrator James Mack/Galvan McNamara, who was a strong ally in our work, to a handbook about international women's film festivals and databases)
Still from Sister Galvan
We know our work is still necessary: Creative New Zealand research (2023) shows that women artists and writers earn 32% less than men; and there are no policies planned to close that gap. This limits public access to women's storytelling. It also means that women cannot easily replace essential hardware, so we have a programme that recycles used phones and computers to provide them to women artists and writers.
OUR TEAM
Four of us co-ordinate today's Spiral Collectives, warmed by the āwhinatanga of many kind 'neighbours' who come and go, some of whom have supported Spiral for decades. Cushla isaWriter + Concept Designer & Developer + Dr P, Visual Artist
Fran is a collector + archivist + consumer.
Dr Joanna is a researcher/art historian + writer + academic literacies specialist + artist/musician
Dr Marian is an ancient Spiral Collectives remnant, trained in creative writing + law.
