Monica Brewster Evening: Sophie Jerram in conversation with Dr. Zara Stanhope

Tuesday 9th April 2024 | 6PM

Monica Brewster Evenings is a monthly event series with thinkers, makers, enablers and practitioners from across the creative sector.

Join us for our April Monica Brewster Evening with social practice curator Sophie Jerram in conversation with Govett-Brewster Art Gallery director Dr. Zara Stanhope.

Massey University Press’s Urgent Moments, which Sophie co-edited with Mark Amery and Amber Clausner was published in late 2023. It describes ten years of Letting Space’s projects which included founding the first Free Store in 2010, or the Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa (TEZA) in 2013 and 2015.
In dialogue with Zara Stanhope, Sophie will talk about the process of bringing together artists and communities, and how this work progressed via the Occupy movement of 2011, to a more open-source model of the Urban Dream Brokerage, and further toward permanent community owned model of Vogelmorn Bowling Club, that remains an artistic hub in Wellington.
She will talk about how artists must understand relationships between forces of political, legal, artistic and spatial levers in order to retain spaces for work and community. They will discuss a number of topics regarding how we share space with others in open and creative ways and question what role artists have in this?

Sophie Jerram is a curator of non-material, or social art practices where artists work with communities in public spaces based in Wellington. She has developed and curated work with communities through Letting Space, Urban Dream Brokerage and Vogelmorn Community. Following a PhD in landscape from University of Copenhagen and Victoria Universities, and two years leading Wellington City's arts strategy Aho Tini, she is pursuing her interest in spatial communing, orthe practice of common space development, working regularly in national and international contexts with artists and communities navigating shared environments.

Monica Brewster Evenings are produced in partnership with Govett Quilliam - The Lawyers, with further event support from Michael Radich Winemerchants, Theory Food, and Shining Peak brewing.