K’ Rd was an unruly teenager when I happened upon her—smelly, grungy, raw, untended in part, with a serious reputational problem. She was ready for a new economy, for artists to move in, and move in we did. First, I lived above the butcher’s and then in a penthouse apartment supposedly built for the mistress of a real estate tycoon. It was a breath-taking snapshot of high-70s style, a chic period realisation in need of some serious tender loving care. Five storeys up, two storeys high and 350 square metres, with 360-degree views of Auckland (no longer available, folks; built out of course) this apartment featured in my series ‘Abigail’s Party’ (1999), and this is where we all partied when it was 1999.

In his heady, surrealist-inspired prose, Giovanni Intra described us as “unemployed psychopaths who frequent Verona Café and actually believe in drag.” We were there on K’ Road in a moment that was unique and resounding, when queer and rock-and-roll met up with too much coffee and the dance party scene like a big cake: Bandy Candy and the Cock Suckers, Bunny Boutique, Fiat Lux, Studio Lagonda, 23A Gallery, Hilda Scum, Rim Books, Margaret (K’ Rd’s Queen), Monica magazine, Hero parades (once on K’ Road), pre-parties, and Teststrip of course. I also remember the missing women of the street; we had candlelit vigils for them, and the amazing Prostitutes Collective published a comprehensive ‘Ugly Mugs’ book that workers could review. We loved Interview and iD magazines and the Elam Library. Nights out began with a gin and tonic at the Las Vegas Strip Club, backgrounded with twisted DJ notes of raspy female vocalists from the 60s (the DJ was from a 60s time-warp) and then on to Calibre or Staircase or Herzog, we had only to mobilise 100 metres, home in the wee hours for a dip in the blow-up paddling pool on the penthouse deck overlooking the street.

Now what does all this mean, culturally and socially, and for art? I guess it means the most exciting art scene in Aotearoa at that time was on an urban street, in a red-light district, not at the Auckland City Art Gallery. It means boundaries and binaries around sexuality and gender were beginning their now-eclipsed descent. It means we took matters into our own hands, unable to see ourselves and our concerns reflected in the cultural programme of the time; we made places to live and produce which were, and are, in and of that cultural moment. We made things with a unique and new outlook, things that had an urgency and a rawness that had not been articulated before, a new kind of subjectivity characterised our outputs—mine was ‘a flash-lit wakeup call’ called Redeye (1997).