Vanessa Crofskey
Vanessa 梅, otherwise known as Van, is a writer and artist currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau. They are the current Kaitohu of The Pantograph Punch, an Aotearoa-based online arts and culture journal.
Prior to this they were the Director of Enjoy Contemporary Art Space for a stint. Van has exhibited widely in Aotearoa and published prolifically online and in print. They graduated from AUT with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2017 and have been working in the arts and nonprofit spaces ever since.
They are Chinese-Pākehā, one of those adhd queer nonbinary binches, interested in anime and going for a swim.
What does leadership look like to you?
I’m still figuring out what leadership means to me. I struggle to call myself a leader because I’m not impervious to effing it up on the daily. It’s not because of my innate qualities that I have easier access to climbing up hierarchies of power within settler-colonial structures. True leadership for me is a means of gathering people together, empowering them to show up in their true selves and realise their own agency – and working to dismantle the systems that prevent others from doing the same. Everyone is a leader, in the way that people hold themselves and others in their lives, the ways that we constantly care, teach and learn off one another. For the arts, leadership means advocating for artists, staying firm on your values, being humble, and not compromising on the importance of what arts culture and creativity contribute to the world.
How does your community show up in your practice?
Whether it’s specific peers in the creative sector, colleagues, mentors, friends and chosen family – community enables me to do basically everything. In terms of being in leadership positions, I still struggle with taking too much on board and not knowing how to ask for help. But I literally couldn’t do what I do without other girlbosses whose shoulders I can cry on and without people who help me problem-solve. The most meaningful moments of my career have been the weeks I’ve had it rough, and friends and colleagues have shown up at my doorstep with groceries and flowers. Being in community is reciprocity in action – it means that we see each other as humans whose interests and struggles are interconnected. My org – no arts org in Aotearoa – can exist without the community of artists it relies on. It’s our duty to make sure we’re giving as much as we’re receiving.
