The organisers of an interactive arts project planned for the week running up to ANZAC Day are calling for anecdotes from the public to include in the work.

The Remembrance & Rest Clubhouse is a new project by the Friendly Girls Society for the Auckland City's Council's Living Room programme.

Members of the public are being invited to submit stories about Auckland women to be included in the work. These will be inserted into printed material, which will be freely distributed during the week long occupation of Khartoum Place by FGS. Stories can be personal, about a relative or friend or even something from memory.The organisers of an interactive arts project planned for the week running up to ANZAC Day are calling for anecdotes from the public to include in the work.

The Remembrance & Rest Clubhouse is a new project by the Friendly Girls Society for the Auckland City's Council's Living Room programme.

Members of the public are being invited to submit stories about Auckland women to be included in the work. These will be inserted into printed material, which will be freely distributed during the week long occupation of Khartoum Place by FGS. Stories can be personal, about a relative or friend or even something from memory.FGS will set up temporary clubrooms in Khartoum Place, Auckland CBD from April 21 to 24 with the aim of highlighting silent or little-known anecdotes about the location and at the same time some of its little-known female historical figures within the context of ANZAC Day.

Meanwhile, activities and dialogue constructed to happen within the clubrooms will provide a respite and an alternative environment and experience within the contemporary hubbub of the inner city and its obvious narratives.

Friendly Girls Society member Amanda A'Hara said the collecting of anecdotes fits with the FGS focus on alternative values, ephemeral tales and exchanging of 'other' narratives. Ms A'Hara uses the example of people giving up sugar in their tea to help the war effort being a story that can remind people to think about personal sacrifice or like gestures.

ANZAC commemorations have become a renaissance event for many people. There is an awareness of the futility of war within a post-modern world that is conscious of many current wars, and at the same time a desire to honour in a real way the men who fought, died and were traumatised within the wars that ANZAC acknowledges.

The Friendly Girls Society, with its emphasis on dialogue about the role of benevolence in a post-modern society along with its attention to small narratives and alternative value systems, wants to set up an experience for the people of Auckland at this time that compliments the ANZAC master narrative with other smaller ones that point to women that carried out important deeds for the city and the country at the time - all the while providing time-out to people working and visiting the CBD through its temporary clubrooms.

The 'homey' Friendly Girls Society clubroom is a reference to war history and the role of caring within it - the Red Cross tents where soldiers were healed or cared for as they died - and concurrently presents a contemporary shelter or respite from the routine of everyday CBD activity. On offer within it will be information, conversation, activities, tea and baking - all in the spirit of remembrance and rest.

* If you would like to contribute an anecdote, a story, or a factual occurrence about an Auckland woman who is connected to the Anzac narrative please write it down and email it to friendlygirlssociety@gmail.com.

Previous projects and events by the Friendly Girls Society

* Pecha Kucha presentation - http://www.pechakucha.co.nz - October 2007
* Birdhouse by Friendly Girls Society, collaborative exhibition and performance, Christchurch Art Gallery - September 2007
* Birdhouse by Friendly Girls Society, collaborative exhibition and performance, Artstation Gallery, Auckland - March 2007
* Tea and Sympathy by Friendly Girls Society collaborative exhibition and performance, Canary Gallery, Auckland - November 2005

11/04/08