 Kia ora koutou, e hui hui mai nei tenei rangi, he mihi kau ana hoki, kite mana whenua, nātitua, te atiawa hoki. So our conference abstract mentioned a few things that we wanted to focus on today in our kōrero, but since we submitted that, what feels like many millenniums ago, there have been some significant shifts in the social fabric of the world. So today we decided to speak to the central intent of our website Tusk, that we provide a platform to keep the cultural sector strong from the ground up. Not going to lie, this is a bold aim, one that even we find intimidating. So how do we come through on this aim? In short, it's about having space. Something that working in an online environment has afforded us. It's allowed us to put a stake in the ground. Tusk is a space where we can challenge perceived, inherited, delivered knowledge. It is a space where amongst ourselves and our contributors, we can validate each other's opinions. It is where we can do without having to ask for permission. These were already things that we were thinking about and doing, but the last couple of weeks have really galvanised why this space is important. Firstly, this came through with some of our recent submissions for our current theme, digital platforms, in that having a social media presence affords us the ability to absorb information and form a picture of what is going on globally. It allows us to connect to wider issues. We were reminded of the importance of this passive interaction when we saw this tweet by Wellington author Branavan Ninalingham. It reminded us that in these times of fear and uncertainty, that it is now more than ever that we have a diversity of voices. Secondly, having this space also meant that us folk who are new to the sector could have a space to discuss all those things that we felt were owned by people further up the ladder. Since we started in September 2015, we've had submissions on concepts of nationhood, what it's like to be young and female in the sector, the financial barriers to accessing glam institutions for schools and early childhood centres, the need for an all-sector funding policy, a personal account from a Chinese New Zealander of feeling excluded in the arts sector by bi-cultural ideals, and so many other wonderful and powerful observations. To reiterate though, we are a platform. When we say that we want people to write about their experiences in their own voices, we mean that it is important that their viewpoint isn't edited out by us. By doing this, the voice remains unquestionably theirs, and by providing this platform, we're enabling these stories to be heard, and saying that we don't publish things that we find disempowering to ourselves or our peers. To link this again to the Trumpocalypse, as the results of the election were analysed, thousands of people shared this map that showed what the results would look like if millennials only were voting, heralding this kind of utopian future, aside from the fact that the data was from a survey, a monkey survey, from October, which you probably all know about being data people and visualisation people. What this redirect told us was that us liberal youngins are the future, but what this undermines is that we are also the now, and we're getting shit done now. We started task off an idea that had fermented into an unwavering need to be heard. We tried to get funding through the traditional route, the route that inherited knowledge told us was the only way creative New Zealand. This didn't pan out, so we took the cheap option of getting a square space domain. The traditional route, the inherited knowledge, told us that funding was the way to get this done, when in reality we would have been accountable to an external agency. What we needed and what the funding would not have bought us was time. We still don't have that much time, but we do anyway. And in high sites we realised that it would have also taken some of our freedom. Another interesting lesson in this situation was that for us to break out of the mould we had to fail in the prescribed route. This forced us to think laterally about our approach. That we got there in the first place by being on the unfulfilling hampster wheel of short-term contracts in the arts sector was also really enlightening. So freedom is what we needed. We needed to carve out a space of our own where we could create, experiment, make our own decisions, make mistakes, and be fully autonomous individuals within the wider framework of the cultural sector. Being autonomous also provides us with the opportunity to take risks, which can foster unexpected dialogue. Another risk or something we felt could be misinterpreted was the very simple fact that we wanted to be ourselves. When we first started task simply speaking in our own voices felt like a risk. Would we get flack for being too casual, too sweary, too opinionated? We wanted our online presence to be loose, reactive and relevant to our generation, but would this mean that the more established folk would struggle to take us seriously? These were valid concerns and continue to be something we should be mindful of. But what we actually discovered was that a large part of the sector was hungry for this kind of content. Hungry to not only consume it but to create it with us, which was incredibly emboldening. Not only was being ourselves okay, others wanted to be themselves alongside with us. So collectively we have built task, this website, and it is a collective that we are stronger. So I'm sorry if the gifts are distracting. I love gifts. So we like to think of task as a convergence point, ideas and perspectives to converge and swirl around together before shooting off into other corners of the internet or the world. Convergence and departure is the natural state of the internet and it is this that we must capitalise off. As an example we recently received a message from someone from the Immigration Museum in Melbourne who we had met briefly at the museum's Australasia conference back in May. She was writing to say that task had spurred something in her. Partly as a result of reading our content, she was motivated to interrogate her part, her role in the sector. She wasn't sure exactly what that was yet, what form it would take, or even indeed if it would ventuate into anything beyond developing her own thinking. But this meant so much to us. We had reached one person and that one person was moved to write to us. It meant that what we had collectively created was having an effect in the world. We also know that online spaces can offer unparalleled zones to enable us to communicate with the public and support. One example of this is the Tuakana profile that we established not long after we started. It has a tagline of, a Tuakana is someone for us to learn from in a reciprocal way. Tuakana inspire us and make the sector a welcoming and supportive place. This is a standardised interview where we ask all of our Tuakana the same six questions. We did it because we wanted to give props to people and immediately ask them the question, what do you think people in the early stages of their careers can offer the sector? Once this was well established, we realised that actually people at our own level were also doing some really great work and had valuable insights. So we started on the level profiles with a set of seven standardised questions. Not only does this put their names in front of people, but it puts their ideas in front of people. That we mentioned earlier thusly expanded. TASC was never about us two. It was always about our wider community. And just quickly we needed to do a bit of a shout-out to all of our Tuakana and our on-the-level people who are here today and have given their time for these profiles. Having autonomy and ownership of this website means that we have the flexibility around content. So when our good friend, artist and curator Bridget Idiwete, needed a place to host a podcast she was establishing, we were able to give her space. So as a heads-up also, you should check out her first Flight Path podcast, which is up on TASC and has her interviewing Fijian Australian artist Salote Tawale, and she has a couple more coming up, which will also go up on TASC in the near future. This flexibility also meant that we were able to scale down our hashtag Wednesday for Cardo or Vox Pop to just one of our social media channels and the hits weren't proving to be enough to sustain it on two channels. So going it alone meant that we were able to try new things out and not to worry too much if they didn't work. It's quite a liberating feeling and one that isn't actually that scary, as it turns out. I think we think that as a sector we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get it right all the time. Of course it's essential to what we do as Kaitiaki of History and creators of public content, but can this make us too cautious and too conservative? As our collective presence as a sector is increasingly online, we're hopeful that this will lead to more calculated risk-taking and more tangible acknowledgment that the process of knowledge-making is one of co-creation, which might actually include making some mistakes. So we've made errors. I even spell one of our best friends' names wrong on the website, which I felt really bad about. But if we approach everything we do with the spirit of generosity and co-creation, suddenly making the odd mistake doesn't actually seem like the end of the world. This, of course, doesn't mean that we don't take task seriously. Creating digital content doesn't mean taking it lightly or being flippant. We live and work this stuff, as do our contributors. So who we are and what we do for a living are intrinsically linked. And it is within our Friday Fast Five, where this is most evident. We take turns doing a round-up each Friday of things that we've been thinking about in the past week and it is through this that we're not just linked to article studies, events in the sector, but all the other surrounding things that we're thinking about in our lives at any one time. As an example, the two most recent Fast Fives have seen us both grappling with the election of Trump and the recent earthquakes. My latest Fast Five was titled The Future Is Foked, a reference to the infamous The Future Is Female T-shirt and the despondency so many of us felt when America did not vote in what would have been their first female president. That Fast Five ended with a recap of what my work, this place here, our place, Te Papa, had done on their social media channels with subtle shows of solidarity and compassion. In the most recent Fast Five from Nina, titled People, People, People, Nina picks up this thread and offers more ways to find comfort from the world via poetry and Paul Simon. She also reflects on a keynote from Archivist Bergus Jules and urges people to go along to a talk by Vincent O'Malley that was actually at Auckland Museum last night. What this shows us is how interconnected everything is for us and for the people we work with and for. It shows that within both of us we have many different interests and opinions and it is imperative that these be fostered because of the diversity of the population that we as a sector represent. Though we've been going for just over a year now and we've got some really well-established content, it is no time for us to be complacent. As complacency could mean that this space that we've worked so hard to establish and maintain could erode. It's not always easy, it's a lot of work, but as we have said, now is not the time to give up. Those of us who have platforms need to use them. So we need to add our voices to the cacophony that is already out there and be noisy as Frank Howarth from Museums Australia so wonderfully reminded us at Museums Australasia early this year, the conference in Auckland. We believe that in order to do this we must bring our full selves to what we do and that's what we hope TASC works to achieve in some way. Creating TASC has made crystal clear the rather obvious statement that we are all complex and diverse and we interact with the sector in complex and diverse ways. We may be technicians or students working collections or front of house but our grasp on the bigger picture is not and should not be limited to what we get paid to do during the day. Part of TASC's co-papa is recognising and fostering that agency. Existing in a digital sphere is the only way we have found to do this effectively and with maximum impact. So TASC is about creating an environment where people feel confident enough to share their thoughts publicly. Developing and taking ownership of our sense of place in this sector has allowed both of us to grow immeasurably both personally and professionally. We have become more visible, which always helps but importantly, more importantly we have grappled with some big topics. As Matariki said earlier that were usually owned by people further up the ladder. Our ability to do so in this online space is only beholden to our own imagination, resourcefulness and energy. Our intention is to be expansive to stretch ourselves by considering the issues that affect our sector in the broadest possible sense which is only possible through the diversity of thought brought to the table by our wonderful contributors. We couldn't be less interested in siloing ourselves by narrowing our focus. We are way too greedy for knowledge for that, I think we all are. In museums we often say that context is king and for us TASC is an extension of that. It's about understanding our place in the global context. So this is where we're at. As Matariki said, now more than ever we believe that there is a need to collectively push at the boundaries be active, engage citizens and use whatever platform we have to question, stimulate dialogue and expand horizons. Which brings us to the phrase that has received a lot of airtime in recent weeks the echo chamber and more specifically how do we break out of it? How do we all break out of it? We all know that we spend a lot of time talking to each other and affirming each other's views of the world and the importance of the work we do and why that should be valued. But these kinds of conversations tend to stay within the family. Whether that be TASC or the wider glam sector of course digital allows us to bridge these gaps to a certain extent. But is it really enough? How can we bust down doors and bring our kōrero to the doorstep of people who aren't already a part of it? Because really we are here to talk about digital but it's all about people as we all know. And that's it. Please get in touch with us if you want to contribute to our website. Thank you.