I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, because I don’t hate you; I love you… is an off-site project co-organised by Artspace NZ and Michael Lett Gallery on Karangahape Road as part of Auckland Pride’s visual arts programme.  Featuring work by Jordana Bragg, Xun Cao, Juliet Carpenter, Fiona Clark, Ary Jansen, Paul Johns, Sorawit Songsataya, Pati Solomona Tyrell, with a contribution from No Pride in Prisons.

Today “hate” is visibly injected into everyday politics, and racist, misogynist, homophobic, and sexist arguments bombard publics.  From the Orlando massacre to the gay bashings in Nigeria, Police violence in Istanbul’s Pride Walk to the clash between Police and No Pride in Prisons protestors during Auckland’s Pride Parade, this project acknowledges the victims of hate, supporters of radical love and global activist contributions from LGBTQA organisations from all over the world.

Breaking free of the enclosure of the gallery space, the project intends to penetrate into the everyday life of the city, developing intimate conversations between visitors, hosting venues and participating artists.  The collaborative dialogue between Artspace NZ and Michael Lett gallery will generate an open exhibition ground for presenting recent works from locally based artists with queer perspectives.  The title is borrowed from emerging Auckland based artist Ary Jansen’s video trilogy, What makes me deserving of this space?, which is constructed as an open letter from a transgender son to the Art World as paternal figure.

Within a rising selfie-consumerist culture, this project revisits the psychoanalytical foundations of self-perception, self-image, attachment and intimacy, and is a call to reconsider the politics of representation within a queer climate.

Parallel to this off-site project, Artspace NZ’s Learning Unlearning Relearning and Michael Lett’s top floor will provide an open space with selected publications for curious readers and visitors.