Beginning visible: Women's Art Archive interview project, 1984

Abstract

Article speaks to 'Oral Histories: Women Artists', an audio archive of interviews with women artists in New Zealand recorded by Lita Barrie in 1984. Discusses the archive's size and components, provenance, and Barrie's objective of the project. Discusses the role of documentation material as resistance to the "historic pattern which has conspired towards the invisibility of women's art". Considers their accessibility through the Auckland Art Gallery's E.H.McCormick Research Library, recent digitisation, and inclusion in the Gallery's exhibition 'Collective Women: Feminist Art Archives from the 1970s to the 1990s'. Selects 6 interviews including Juliet Batten, Mary-Louise Browne, Marian Evans, Jacqueline Fraser, Robyn Kahukiwa and Evelyn Page. Acknowledges several gaps in the project's conversation, including issues of class and ethnicity. Mentions the emergence of the Mana Wahine Māori movement.