RM’s Women’s Moving Image Archive will showcase current and past work to the public, and aims to be a platform where emerging and contemporary moving image artists will contribute their work so that a contextual archive of women’s moving image in Aotearoa can be established.

The project is a response to the continued marginalisation of women’s moving image, in which the seminal contributions of a diverse range of artists spanning decades has yet to be historicised or given due attention. Moving image – in its ephemerality and (apparent) lack of commodity value – often partially falls into oblivion, remaining under-seen, under-researched and largely inaccessible. The lack of a consistent archival platform dedicated to women’s moving image (and to indigenous, Pacifica, and LGBTQ moving image artists) is obvious, and this project seeks to slowly fill this fundamental gap.

We hope this archive, in its endeavour to trace, catalogue, preserve, exhibit, and circulate, will be a useful tool for practitioners, artists, scholars, arts organisations, schools, and the wider public. We also hope for future archival projects in which the contributions of marginalised subjects to moving image will be highlighted, and are excited for the potential of this project to engage curators, writers, artists, researchers, archivists, and other galleries to branch out and profile this work.