Projects » We Are Optimistic
We call ourselves We Are Optimistic (WAO). Everyday experiences of difference inspire us. Ideas of conversation and connection between margin and centre, between land and sea, between Maori and Pakeha, between woman and man, intrigue us. Imagining different worlds and new ways of interacting, is what excites us.
We work collaboratively across performance, installation, and curation to make art that hopes to inspire social change. We have worked closely together, sharing a studio and we have worked across distance, emailing from opposite sides of the globe. WAO’s past artworks have been deeply involved with the Dunedin community, in an effort to merge experimental art-making with radical community engagements: We’ve created an imagination-station for a make-believe “Patriarchy Free Zone” in a university lecture hall lobby. We’ve ignited a walkie-talkie conversational performance between the metaphorical margin and the metaphorical centre. We’ve hosted radical feminist thinkers, be-ers and do-ers for a Dunedin symposium and edited a loud little book full of essays and interviews. We’ve talked, doodled and drawn, we’ve curated and created, we’ve roared.