Spiral Collectives

Kia ora!  Thank you for visiting us. For more information, please go to our Spiral Collectives website link at the top of this page.

Spiral is a small artist-led charity, founded 50 years ago by poet and activist Heather McPherson (1942-2017), to present women’s writing and images ‘positively’ and cover an amalgam of arts.  We are warmed by the āwhinatanga of many kind people who support Spiral, some of them for decades.

The Spiral Collectives Trust is a registered charitable trust, CC62215. All receipted donations by New Zealand taxpayers are eligible for tax benefits.

Spiral is honoured that the late Keri Hulme offered us the rights to make an animation and that her whānau continues to embrace us. We're taking it step by careful step, with initial development supported by the Ministry for Culture & Heritage Te Urungi initiative for innovative projects, the Keri Hulme Estate, and Spiral networks. 

Almost all our books are now freely available to read and download at Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery. We deeply appreciate the gallery's support.

A selection of our recent publications

Spiral 8 celebrates beloved Spiral women who've left us, using their own words wherever possible and accompanied by lots of images. In birth date order they are: Jacquie Sturm, Renee, Gladys Gurney (Saj), Marilynn Webb, Frances Cherry, Heather McPherson, Pauline Neale, Keri Kaa, Miriama Evans, Joanna Margaret Paul, Juanita Ketchel, Irihapeti Ramsden, Keri Hulme, Sharon Alston, cover by Biz Hayman, cover image by Joan Caulfield. It has two companion volumes, Spiral Projects 1975-2025 — Some Stories  that includes sections for Hilary Baxter, Allie Eagle, Lynne Ciochetto and a selection of key essays; and  Spiral Projects 1975-2025 — Catalogue, a fully illustrated and extensive catalogue that lists our work in three sections: Literature; Archives; Exhibitions and Events. Women's Film Festivals: A Handbook, 2d ed., includes a new third section on Spiral's film work. 

Our trustees are Dr Biz Hayman, Cathasaigh O'Fiannachta, Dr Joanna Osborne, Kim Hunt, Dr Marian Evans.

Dr Biz: I am an artist, design historian & teacher based in Aotearoa (New Zealand).

I have taught & researched art & design at universities, art schools and local community. My work in ceramics is a return to my original medium, first encountered at school. My Dad made my first pottery wheel out of an old spin dryer and a car brake pad, invented a petrol-feed for my first home-built kiln and drove me the hundreds of miles to Glasgow for my ceramic degree interview. 

I hand build from sections I’ve thrown on the wheel and then altered. Most of my work is abstract, sometimes made with certain symbolic functions in mind. I love the idea of using the time-honoured, traditional technique of throwing to pursue radical, fresh forms. I need to see something on the wheelhead, the banding wheel, the workbench that I’ve not seen before. Once that’s happening, I’m happy to commit to the rest of the ceramic process. 

My historic research is focused on an 18th century incident that happened in my home town of Tring in Herfordshire, in the UK. It’s likely to have ceramic outcomes as well as published word content. 

I also collaborate with book publishing projects, design book covers, develop websites & gardens.

Cathasaigh: I am a nonbinary award-winning writer/producer living and working in Kēkerengū, Aotearoa. An alumnus of the United World College programme in Singapore with 15+ years professional film/TV experience in Aotearoa and abroad, I am a disruptive innovator in talent and intellectual property development, dedicated to connecting unorthodox ideas with useful resources and unconventional funding.

My role on The Bone People adaptation is to help design and finance a creative pipeline that can successfully, safely, and sustainably deliver a globally significant, cross-cultural masterpiece to new audiences. It’s a privilege to honour Keri’s wishes, work and spirit.

Dr Joanna is a researcher/art historian + writer + academic literacies specialist + artist/musician. She co-ordinated Spiral's 50th anniversary exhibition, already shown at the Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatapui-Wahine o Aotearoa in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and St Gerard's Monastery Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and due at Dunedin Public LIbrary Ōtepoti in mid-July 2026. 

Kim: I write from the wild coastal solitude of Aotearoa (New Zealand), the vast expanses of Australia and any big city that’ll have me.

My writing is informed by my time as a band roadie, dj, tiler, horticulturalist and women’s refuge worker. Countless automotive projects litter her past and permeate my present.

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I hold a Master of Letters from the University of Sydney and was a runner up in the 2023 Sisters in Crime USA Pride Awards, recognizing her as an Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Fiction Writer.

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My debut crime novel, The Beautiful Dead (2020), is the first in the Cal Nyx Mystery Thriller series all set in Australia. It was shortlisted for Best First Novel in the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards. Cal, my kick-ass protagonist, also appears in The Quarry (2023) and features in The Freezer (2024), the third Cal Nyx novel. My most recent book The Corrector, set in Aotearoa,  introduces the Erin Hart series.

Marian by Cilla McQueen
Dr Marian, trained in creative writing + law, has been part of many Spiral projects and with Cushla Parekowhai and others helped set up Spiral's charitable trust and succession plan. As a member of Spiral's original the bone people collective, with the late Irihapeti Ramsden and the late Miriama Evans, Marian's here now in support of the new generation's adaptation of the bone people as a graphic novel and animation.