We commit to operating the library according to the following principles: 

 

• To honour and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi, acknowledging tangata whenua as people of the land and in recognition that this land was stolen from Māori and sovereignty never ceded

• To respect and honour the space we occupy in the Samoa House building, and the layered history of this site in which we are implicated, as indicated by and held in our name—to reflect and act on this responsibility accordingly 

• To support and platform Māori and Pacific knowledges and practices as a crucial part of our programme 

• To practice collective decision making processes at a board level that recognise our individual perspectives, as well as those perspectives that exist outside of our board 

• To welcome feedback, criticisms, and comments from the public and address concerns in an active way that reflects the values of our organisation

• To demonstrate a duty of care to those we host and our wider community, as well as those directly involved, such as our volunteers, donors, studio residents, contracted practitioners, advisors, supporters, and organising members

• To foster a sense of belonging, through respecting and nurturing the mana of others

• To create space in which peoples of the Pacific feel safe and welcomed

 

As a library we aim to:

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• Provide infrastructural conditions for artistic thinking and radical pedagogy

• Create a collective setting where knowledge is shared and critical conversation is encouraged

• Form around relations and kinship, which requires and benefits from ongoing negotiation and discovery

• Maintain a space that is welcoming, free, comfortable, and safe for all communities to use

• Make the collection readily usable, useful, and relevant 

• Prioritise critical evaluation of our material, and of the organisation of this material

• Expand the archive and diversify the collection—to pluralise our archive and place value on an ecology of knowledges and epistemologies

• To maintain a collection that represents and reflects our placement in the Pacific

• Develop the library to reflect the needs and concerns of the local artistic field and our context

 

All visitors to the library are expected to:

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• Respect the mana of other visitors and volunteers at the library

• Be considerate of others within the building including the studio residents 

• Take care of the library’s resources and facilities

• Understand unequivocally that bullying and personal or discriminatory harassment is not tolerated