Local philanthropist funds laureate for queer artist

The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi has announced a new award for an outstanding queer artist or collective of artists whose practice has meaningful impact on the queer community.

Yesterday announcing the laureate, which has been gifted the name Toi Ko¯ Iriiri, the foundation said it would recognise and celebrate a queer artist or artist’s collective by supporting them with a $30,000 gift and sharing their story with the country.

The award will be granted for at least a decade, after Christchurchbased foundation trustee and philanthropist Hall Cannon donated $300,000. It will be presented for the first time next year with the other up to 10 laureate awards.

‘‘We didn’t want to provide an award to someone from the queer community – we wanted to give it to someone who’s helping spark conversation around social change and [explores] the impact the queer community has overall,’’ Cannon said in an interview this week.

Jo Blair, the foundation’s head, said the Arts Foundation worked for 16 months to make the Queer Arts Award – the first of its kind in Aotearoa – a reality.

The Toi Ko¯ Iriiri name was gifted by queer activist and Green MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, who interprets it to mean ‘‘art that transforms – that moves us in or out of discomfort, but always to a new place’’.

The selection process for its winner will differ from other laureates, with the foundation crowdsourcing a selection panel to choose the inaugural recipient. The winner of the award will be announced in August.

The different selection process was to make the award as inclusive and representative as possible of the wider queer community. The foundation acknowledged there was no single umbrella term to encompass the rainbow community, and that ‘‘queer’’ as a reclaimed term was not used by all. It was not using it as a pejorative, but as an inclusive term to reference those who fell outside of cisgender or heterosexual identities.

Cannon said queer artists had historically not been given credit, and they experienced barriers showing work in formal arts spaces like galleries, museums and within the professional art market in auctionhouses and with dealers.

Blair said the foundation was going through its own internal changes, trying to better represent women and other artists from minority communities, including queer artists.

Elyssia Wilson-Heti, from Pacific queer arts collective FAFSWAG and Auckland Pride Festival, said the award’s timing was significant, with Auckland celebrating 50 years of Pride next year.

The award’s creation would not exclude queer artists being selected for other laureate awards.