I love to collaborate. I’ve worked with public libraries, musicians, visual artists, graphic designers, community groups on collaborative projects, working at festivals, conferences and retreats.
Some recent collaboration highlights:
>I co-wrote a performance piece, ‘From the 4410 to the 4412’, for the inaugural Papaoiea Festival of the Arts in 2021 with Marolyn Krasner and Charlie Pearson. Listen to us talk to Pip Adam about the show on the Better Off Read podcast.
>Palmy Zine Fest! I’m part of the Zine Fest planning committee. We ran epic Palmy Zine Fests in 2020 and 2021, despite the pandemic doing it’s best to thwart us! (Beautiful poster by Alice Fennessy.)
>Verb Festival 2019: I chaired the event Climate Changing Fiction
‘The latest works from Jeff Murray (The Melt), Lawrence Patchett (The Burning River), Maru Nihoniho (Metia Interactive) and Elizabeth Knox (The Absolute Book) all explore our world in the wake of climate catastrophes. A fascinating hour with Helen Lehndorf on art as activism and imagination as a vehicle for hope. #CliFi’
The Sketchbook Project I took part in a local initiative to fill sketchbooks for the New York-based Sketchbook Project.
Read a newspaper article about our local project.
View my sketchbook at the The Sketchbook Project online libary.
>National Poetry Day 2019: A collaboration with the Palmerston North City Library’s new maker space Blueprint. ‘Bags and Badges for National Poetry Day’. I led a 2-hour writing workshop which culminated in the writers making poetry bags and badges.
>Kahini Writers’ Retreats: I taught writing and yoga at the Kahini writer’s retreats for seven years.
An evening with Rob Thorne & Helen Lehndorf 2016 – Rob and I are old friends and we collaborated on a words + music performance – his Nga Taonga Pouru instruments and loop pedal, my words.
>Black River: A Collaboration in Print & Poetry, Te Manawa Art Gallery 2015
Inspired by Ralph Hotere’s collaboration with poets Te Manawa bought together local artists and poets to actively engage in a collaborative process.
The participants, who have a connection to the Manawatū region, are Israel Birch, Leonel Alvarado, Rachael Garland, James Brown, Heather Partel, Helen Lehndorf, David Pearce, Johanna Aitchison, Ngataiharuru Taepa, Gavin Reedy, Virginia Warbrick, and Tim Upperton. Poets were paired with artists to make new work relating to the river.
>Eyes in the Skies: Seven Poets, Seven Prints for Matariki 2009
A collaboration with artists Virginia and Warren Warbrick. Seven local poets -the ‘seven sisters’- write from seven prints by Virginia Warbrick. The poems and prints were exhibitied at Square Edge, Palmerston North and culminated in a multimedia poetry and Nga Taonga Pouru performance. I wrote a poem for the exhibition, co-ordinated the poets and assisted on event production.
Helen Lehndorf 