Funding for galleries flawed
The Super City is still a blank canvas as far as Auckland’s community art galleries are concerned, operating an old funding model that favours some galleries over others.
The Te Uru Waita¯ kere Contemporary Gallery in Titirangi receives $17.53 per visitor. At the other end of the scale the Waiheke Community Art Gallery gets just 14 cents.
This is because Auckland Council is still funding community art galleries under funding models used by the former councils before the Super City was created in 2010.
Sue Wood, who chairs the Waiheke Community Art Gallery, said it was inconceivable the gallery was still funded under the old Auckland City Council model nine years into the Super City.
In the last financial year, the gallery received $11,019 from council’s arts and culture fund and had 77,492
visitors. Te Uru had less than half that number — 36,799 — and received $645,054 from council.
Wood said the Waiheke gallery had to raise 95 per cent of its funds to stay afloat, placing enormous strain on staff and volunteers.
“We simply want a more equitable model and want to know when council will complete this work. The viability of our gallery is at issue right now.”
Ian Maxwell, council’s director of customer and community services, said councillors would not make decisions on a new funding model until the lead-up to the new 10-year budget in 2021.
The new model would require input from the governing body as well as local boards, which allocate funding to community art galleries, he said.
Maxwell said issues of equity, local board priorities, community needs and population demographics would be taken into account.
He said art galleries may also receive other funding from Auckland Council and the Government’s Creative Communities Scheme.
The council produced figures showing in the past financial year, the Waiheke gallery received an extra $17.53 per visitor for Te Uru Waita¯ kere Community Gallery, Titirangi $3.52 per visitor for Uxbridge, Howick 14c for Waiheke Community Art Gallery $8580 from the Waiheke Local Board, a regional grant of $25,000 towards the Sculpture on the Gulf along a 2km coastal walkway and $2000 from the Creative Communities Scheme for arts workshops.
Andrew Clifford, director of Te Uru Waita¯kere Contemporary Gallery, said using visitor numbers as a measure of subsidy was a crude tool.
He said the gallery was a unique case because it opened in 2014 as part of a $20.8 million upgrade of Lopdell House in Titirangi.
“A crude analysis of visitor numbers does not come close to recognising the kind of value cultural facilities return to the community.”
Vickie Bowers, director of Uxbridge in Howick, said all the galleries were different and the challenge was to make valid comparisons.
“Uxbridge is not just an art gallery — we have a theatre . . . and spaces for classes and workshops.”
It received $319,034 in funding and had 90,676 visitors in the last financial year.