Enjoy Contemporary Art Space is calling for applications from artists to the 2025 Summer Residency programme, delivered in partnership with the Rita Angus Cottage Trust.

This six week residency from 20 January–2 March 2025 is an opportunity for a practitioner to develop an ambitious project to be realised with Enjoy while working in Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Enjoy will prioritise residency project proposals that are experimental and speculative in nature, and engage with the context of the Rita Angus Cottage or Angus’ practice. To read more about Enjoy’s Mission and Vision and the projects we have supported in the past, please visit their website.

The residency includes:

• Accommodation and a studio/workspace at the historic Rita Angus Cottage, including access to all household amenities, power and wifi
• Logistical, curatorial and research support from Enjoy Staff
• $3000 stipend, plus travel to Wellington (from within New Zealand)
• A subsequent project with Enjoy Contemporary Art Space (this may take the form of a programme, seminar, exhibition, etc).

About

Located in Thorndon, the Rita Angus Cottage has considerable historical significance. The cottage was home to Rita Angus from 1955 until her death in 1970. It was here that Angus painted some of the signal images of modern art in New Zealand: startlingly modern representations of the New Zealand landscape; unique and insightful portraits; flower paintings of exquisite and grave concentration; and fascinating, enigmatic self-portraits.

Angus named the cottage Fernbank Studio, and this name, with her own underneath, was painted on a plaque affixed to the back of the house (a replica is now on the front veranda). The house, garden, magnolia tree, nearby houses and cemetery all feature in her work. Her friend and sometime patron Douglas Lilburn, the composer, came from Tinakori Road to live very near at 22 Ascot Street.

The cottage is nationally significant, and listed as a Category 1 historic place with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. With the considerable upgrading that the Trust has carried out over the last ten years, including recent work in the extensive garden, the cottage’s suitability as an artist’s residence is unrivalled in Wellington

Since 1985, the Thorndon Trust (now Rita Angus Cottage Trust) has facilitated over 40 artist residencies at the Rita Angus Cottage. The residency includes accommodation in a fully furnished heritage house, which includes a studio.

Apply

Please submit your application as a clearly named single PDF file, and include:

• A project or research proposal, including aims for the residency and why it is relevant to the development of the specific project or research*
• A short biography and CV
• Up to eight supporting images or samples of previous work

*Applicants are encouraged to connect their proposal to Rita Angus or her historic cottage and garden.

Applications should be sent via email to brooke@enjoy.org.nz. Proposals are due 5 pm, 21 Monday October. Applications are reviewed by Enjoy’s director and curator in collaboration with the Rita Angus Cottage Trust. You will be notified of the outcome of your proposal by Monday 4 November.

Artist Maungaronga (Ron) Te Kawa was Enjoy’s summer resident for 2024. Te Kawa used their time at the residency to research Rita Angus and her controversial painting Rutu, while developing an ambitious sculptural work. This has eventuated in an exhibition at Enjoy opening on Friday 14 February 2025.