We educate about women’s creative practices and legacies, and awhi and tautoko them with books, exhibitions, events, moving image, websites and archives. We’ve created, supported and held public spaces for work by women artists and writers for half a century, sometimes in association with sister organisations Kidsarus 2 (1978-ca 1985) and the Women’s Gallery (1980-2004). For more info, see: Spiral Collectives Projects 1975-2025 — A Catalogue (makariri 2025) Spiral Collectives Projects 1975-2025 — Some Stories (koanga 2025)

You might expect us to use bigger words, like ‘whakamana’ or ‘empower’. But we can’t. We didn’t empower Keri to write the bone people and it arrived in the mail with its mana intact. We didn’t empower Heather to write ‘Have you heard of Artemisia?’. All we did was love their work and share it with audiences who might appreciate it too. ‘Cherish’ comes from ‘carus’, ‘beloved, precious, valued’, the same Latin word that generated ‘care’ and ‘charity’. If you’re a woman, or nonbinary person, it’s tough to survive as a creative practitioner. Many of us strengthen and flourish when we and our work are cherished. So, Spiral cherishes. To build collective wellbeing, we choose to engage our hearts and our artist imaginations in collective acts that cherish creative work, its makers and its audiences. Two vibrant strands from our herstory affect our practices. Wāhine Māori have brought their manaakitanga, their awhi and their tautoko to projects. And Heather McPherson and her Pākehā peers — who often also self-identified as lesbians or lesbian feminists — modelled a consistent, kind embrace, and support that both challenges and nourishes.Sometimes one influence is more obvious, sometimes another. Our 50-year story demonstrates that our cherishing contributes strongly to positive change, when combined with curiosity (“What if?”), persistence and patience. It seems to help when we also detach from our individual desires for financial or career advancement: this can be hard to do, even for a short time. But problems are solved. Challenges are overcome. And magic happens.

Spiral used to operate under the umbrella of the Women’s Gallery Inc. and is now a registered charity, The Spiral Collectives Trust (CC62215). The Spiral Collectives Trust, and our fiscal host, Gift Collective, (CC40774) can both receive donations and grants, provide donation tax receipts, and disburse funds for expenses.

Sometimes we contract specialists for particular tasks.

Trustees all have well-established arts practices and have worked on Spiral projects before becoming trustees.

We’re at capacity for the foreseeable future. But we encourage people to ask to ‘borrow’ the Spiral imprint to publish work that is by women and/or nonbinary people, or selected by them. The imprint/logo may also be available for other creative projects.

Spiral’s always welcomed what Heather McPherson described as ‘presence and capability’ and felt excited by ‘what if…?’ projects that trespass a little, try new ways to support and amplify creative expression by women and by nonbinary people.

When you have a project that supports creative expression by women and or by nonbinary people, in any medium, and want to take it to the world, please ask us about forming your very own self-determining, self-funding collective under the Spiral umbrella.

EQUIPMENT: We link people who want to gift good second-hand devices to creative practitioners who need them. Let us know if you’d like to go on the list of donors or recipients. TAUTOKO: We amplify work by women and nonbinary creatives on social media, whenever we can. Tag us, and usually we'll tautoko your work and events. LEGACIES Historically, we struggled to find information about our cultural grandmothers. We wanted something different for future generations, to provide useful information about the sometimes complex lives and work of those associated with Spiral. We maintain and protect Spiral's archives, deposit them in public collections, and educate about them. Spiral Collectives Projects 1975-2025 — A Catalogue Spiral Collectives Projects 1975-2025 — Some Stories We encourage others to do the same with their own archives. It’s so easy to forget, to lose significant documents, analogue and digital.

Mostly at the Alexander Turnbull Library — personal and organisational correspondence; other documents like minute books; photographs; audiotapes; video; ephemera; art works. Our archive includes material from Kidsarus 2 and the Women’s Gallery and is open to everyone. A very small proportion of the collection is closed for some years because it contains sensitive material with the capacity to hurt living people. Almost all our books are available for free download at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.

Lots of ways! With us, or independently: We love it whenever you tell us your stories and when you offer us your stories and images to include in our celebratory publications. We deeply appreciate the generous artists and writers who have contributed to Keri Hulme Our Kuru Pounamu and Spiral 8. Please advocate for better conditions for creative practitioners who are women or nonbinary people, any old time. Smile at us all. Hug us all warmly. And if you enjoy children, welcome ours into your lives. Join our social media — celebrate and amplify the creative work of women and nonbinary people with us, on facebook instagram bluesky Youtube Check out our books, freely available to read and download from the Christchurch Art Gallery te Puna o Waiwhetū site. Let us and others know what you think and feel about them. Recommend them whenever you can. Check out AI activism, which aims to address practices that negatively affect us. Support it if you can. Help build audiences on screens: watch out for work by women and nonbinary people on tiktok, insta, streamers, YouTube, Vimeo, cinema and television. Share with others what interests and excites you. Offer your good used devices for redistribution to artists and writers who are women or nonbinary people. Many women creatives cannot easily replace essential hardware, so we have a programme that recycles used phones and computers and offers them to individuals. Share your connections if you think they might benefit us. Look out for our events, and our appearances at events that others organise. Gift some time: offer your practical skills, always very welcome. Especially transcription, proof reading, and home cooking. Help women and nonbinary people to maintain their archives in good shape and to make plans about where to house them safely. Even the unbelievers amongst us welcome and cherish your karakia and prayers that support our kaupapa and intentions. Donations are always welcome. -------------------- Image acknowledgements: Spiral enjoys generous hospitality at Karukatea Featherston Booktown 2024. Photographer uncertain. Launch for Kim Hunt’s The Freezer Books & Co Otaki 2024. L-R Biz Hayman cover designer, Kim Hunt. Photograph Spiral. Cover Heather McPherson’s i do not cede, selected and with an introduction by Emer Lyons. Cover Biz Hayman. Cover Women’s Film Festivals & #womeninfilm databases — A Handbook 2d ed including #directedbywomen #aotearoa Parliamentary screening of Rouzie Hassanova’s Radiogram, Q & A 2020. L-R Annie Collins, Rouzie, Emily. Photograph Lorna Kanavatoa. On the road, taking Heather McPherson’s archives to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, for deposit at the Alexander Turnbull Library, 2016. L-R Marian Evans, Cushla Parekowhai. Photograph Selfie.