Annika Kristensen: a leader in Australia’s contemporary art scene
Annika Kristensen is a leader in Australia’s contemporary art scene. As the Senior Curator at ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) she works with some of the field’s best and brightest artistic talents. I’m curious to hear how this global citizen and cultural dynamo is dealing with life at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how ACCA’s new initiative ACCA Open is responding to the challenge.
Interview by Maria O’Dwyer Photography by Mia Mala McDonald
Maria O’Dwyer: You’ve moved many times, both nationally and internationally, to study and to pursue a career. How much has this globalised perspective on the world shaped who you are and your career?
Annika Kristensen: I was born in Melbourne but grew up in Perth – one of the most isolated capital cities in the world. My father is Swedish and my mother a Victorian, so from an early age I was aware of friends and family that were elsewhere – that the world around me was vast.
For me, to grow up in Perth was always to want to leave it. The city is isolated not only physically but culturally: everything that we consumed as kids – from film and television, to art and music – was an import. This is not to say that there is nothing of cultural worth that is produced there – I would argue the very opposite in fact (for more on this see Nick Allbrook’s unbeatable essay ‘Creative Darwinism: Pretty Flowers Grow in Shit’) – just that we were always taught otherwise. Any sense of a creative or romantic life seemed only to happen to people from other places. So naturally, I wanted to go to those other places.
I’ve lived in Melbourne for 6 years now – the longest I have been in one place since I permanently left Perth in 2007. I’ve loved many cities and never regretted moving on to new ones; the experience of studying in Edinburgh, beginning my career in London, and returning to Australia to work for the Biennale of Sydney have left indelible marks on my identity, worldview, artistic and intellectual interests. The downside to a peripatetic life is feeling like a perennial outsider, not being part of a generation or a ‘crowd’. But for me, the pluses have always been greater. Being an outsider has allowed me to see things with fresh eyes; to be anonymous – mostly; and to feel a constant curiosity about the cities I’ve called home. This way of being – adrift, but alert – has shaped my experience of the world in profound and innumerable ways.
What drew you to contemporary art?
Like most, I was a creative kid and a keen, but never gifted, little artist. My love of art history developed in high school when I realised I was better at writing about artworks than making them. Suddenly all the subjects I was learning at school – so abstract and independent from one another – began to make sense. In writing about a painting, I could bring in the history, politics, and broader culture of the time in which it was created. In unpacking that one image, the whole world came together.
My interest in contemporary art came later – almost in reaction to pursuing my love of art history academically. I grew frustrated by the rigidity of academia and impatient by the slow pace of it. I realised that I didn’t want to wait for a journal article to come out about an artwork or an exhibition so that I could cite it – I wanted to be involved in the making of that artwork or exhibition; to be a part of, not apart from, history. And while I still love art history, and remain in awe of objects, I wanted to work directly with artists – and to work with them in the creation of work that reflects the conditions of our time.
You’ve described commissioning new work as a risk – as you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. What’s the riskiest thing you’ve ever curated?
I describe myself as a commissioning curator – as opposed to a curator who works with collections. Working with artworks and objects is a part of what I do, but I think of my role primarily as working with people and assisting artists through the conceptual and practical development and presentation of new work. Making new work can indeed be risky – but I would say it is a calculated risk. Usually, before approaching an artist, you will have an understanding of their previous practice, their interests and their ideas for the direction of a project. Things will always detour – and that’s the interesting bit! It’s important to develop rapport and trust with the artists that you are working with: to trust in their process and to know when to step back, and when to offer feedback and guidance.
As for the riskiest thing… it’s hard to single out a project! I’ve had major technical issues minutes before an opening, release forms signed at the eleventh hour, insect infestations, transport delays, material hiccups – you name it. One memorable project was for Swedish artists Goldin+Senneby, who were part of the exhibition ‘Greater Together’ that I curated at ACCA in 2017. The project hinged around the presentation of a large oak tree in the gallery – and the fact that the tree was specifically an oak was conceptually very important to the artists. Finding an oak in Melbourne that was in need of being felled was much more challenging a task than in Stockholm, where the work had previously been shown. I think I called every council and arborist in the city. Finally, after weeks of sleepless nights worrying about how we were going to pull it off, I found a family on Gumtree (the irony!) trying to get rid of an oak from their front garden. We employed arborists to skilfully cut down the tree into segments, a crane truck driver to transport it, and riggers to reassemble the tree safely in the gallery. It was hair-raising nearly every step of the way, but in the end – seeing an oak tree filling the gallery from floor-to-ceiling – it was majestic. Most things worth doing involve a little risk.
You mentioned to me that art and life have always overlapped – never more so than now, with a toddler and a world in lock down. How are you managing the balance now? How did you do it before?
There is an old adage that if you do what you love then you’ll never work another day. The flipside of that sentiment is that if what you love becomes your work, you may never get another day off! For most artists and arts workers, art is a passion before it becomes a vocation. Creativity doesn’t begin work at 9am and finish at 5pm. In addition, ‘the art world’ is exactly that: a global community of colleagues, friends and peers. It can be a social world, gathering at openings and events that often take place on weekends or after hours. The lines between art and life – the personal and the professional – can often feel blurred.
This is especially felt as technology has enabled us to be contactable anytime, anywhere – and certainly the possibilities of, and reliance upon, digital connection has taken on whole new meaning as we shift to working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown. Suddenly colleagues are ‘zooming’ into one another’s bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and studies. Conversations are interrupted by kids, pets, the doorbell, incoming phone calls on other devices. I’m currently juggling work part-time, with a toddler at home full-time. It’s a challenge, but I am lucky to have a supportive partner, a flexible workplace and colleagues who don’t mind watching my son eat scrambled eggs in the middle of a Zoom meeting!
How to create a work/life balance – then and now – is a work in progress: there have been many days when I attempt to be both a parent and a professional and end up failing at both. Set boundaries, know when to say no, work when it works, ask for help when you need it, and don’t tell yourself that you need to do it all. You don’t.
Women artists have traditionally found it harder to gain gallery representation, or have their work held in state collections. Have you seen this shift over the course of your career?
The last five years have seen profound cultural shifts, with questions of equity, equality, visibility and representation becoming central within the arts. There is, of course, more work to be done, but in terms of gender representation and equality in exhibitions and collections we have seen galleries around the world make efforts to address the blind spots in their collecting history, as well as major institutional exhibitions of under-recognised female artists. In Australia, important projects such as The CoUNTess Report, led by artist Elvis Richardson, have kept tabs on gender equality in the local contemporary art sector, and several individuals and organisations internationally – including Jennifer Higgie with her brilliant podcast Bow Down – have made efforts to profile the important and often overlooked work of women artists throughout history. For me, the myth of the artist as male has long been busted, but I’ve been lucky to have incredible women as teachers, colleagues and mentors who have always worked to discuss, exhibit and promote the work of female artists, whether consciously or otherwise.
How do you see the contemporary art world changing or responding to the challenges of COVID-19?
The effects of COVID-19 on the international art world were immediate, devastating and will be long-lasting. No one yet knows how this ends, but I think we can be certain that things will be very different on the other side. In the short term, we have seen galleries globally turn towards digital programming, and artists beginning to adapt their ways of working and consider expanded, disparate and diverse audiences for their work. Artists and arts organisations are innovative and resilient – by both nature and necessity – but there will be inevitable challenges ahead. At a moment in which we are all taking solace in the arts – be it the books we are reading, the music we are listening to or the film and television that we are consuming – I hope that individuals, organisations and governments will appreciate the enormous value of creativity and dig deep to support artists through this, and continue to do so on the other side. Personally, I am looking forward to being able to gather again: to experience work in physical space, together with other people.
What’s next for you?
At ACCA, we are about to launch ACCA Open, a new commissioning opportunity for Australian artists to present work in the digital realm. I’m looking forward to being inspired by artists as they imagine new futures, ways of being and creating at this strange and difficult time. I have also been working on a project with Sydney-based artist and curator Frances Barrett, which will be the first exhibition when the gallery eventually re-opens. France’s project, Meatus, is an embodied, sensory and immersive listening experience, and will offer a – by then – much-needed physical connection with art, architecture and each another. Until then, I’m enjoying a glass of wine at the end of the day, a good coffee in the morning, and putting one foot in front of the other until the road ahead is in clearer view.
