Creative capital?
Wellingtonmust support its artists
As 2021 slowly wakes, we can look forward to a parade of festivals making the most of Wellington’s one reliably clear weather patch. Whilemuch of the world struggles with lockdowns and social distancing, Wellington’s free events programmes encourage the opposite.
Later this month, the programme will be released for What if the City was a Theatre? a new city-wide performance series across February and March encouraging us ‘‘to rethink the limits of public space’’. It’s the work of ever-innovative waterfront live arts festival Performance Arcade, which will also once again spill voluminously out of shipping containers.
Then there’s New Zealand Fringe over 38 venues, Newtown Festival – ridiculously, 150 performances over 15 stages – and the public fantasia that is CubaDupa.
All celebrate Wellington’s distinctive way of crossing artistic boundaries, encouraging participation and taking over public space – when the weather allows. It’s the crucible the marketing moniker ‘‘Creative Capital’’ was built on.
The reality, however, is it’s also a reputation built on artist goodwill rather than a living wage; in a city that used to be far better at providing space for artists to live, collaborate and develop work.
In November, Mayor Andy Foster hosted a forum recognising the need for a new economic development strategy. The last was in 2011, and its strategies ‘‘to maintain Wellington’s reputation as the arts, culture and events capital’’ all pointed at events and promotional activity.
Little investment was put into the spaces and support for artists to grow careers and be more embedded in the city, rather than suffer the inequities and insecurity of the gig economy.
This is not limited to the arts. There’s been increasing calls for a more connected-up regional strategy that looks at job creation, not just events and tourism.
Such an approachwas promised in the very name Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency when it was created in 2014. It’s now called WellingtonNZ and new chief executive John Allen confirmed back in July that over time they had narrowed their focus to attracting international visitors, promoting and attracting events and supporting businesses. He’s clear that’s now not enough.
Late last year WellingtonNZ funded Ringatoi Po¯neke, an eightweek artist-led programme supporting artists to work with mentors to find new business models. The independent track record of these artists and their ambitions were inspiring.
We need to support artists creating work in the city, not just presenting it. And for all residents, not just visitors, permanent creative spaces create a sense of ownership in the city, making this a place where we want to spend money. Right now we have a property crisis accentuating these issues – affordable rental, let alone property ownership, is crippling for our young. Social and cultural space is vital.
At the very time Wellington started calling itself Creative Capital, 20 years ago, venues and studio space for artists became less affordable, spaces and events more restricted by regulation. Even that beacon of new work, the Hannah Playhouse – home to Downstage Theatre – languished. It’s a travesty it lies empty right now.
Artists thrive in independent space. Wellington has the lion’s share ofmajor tertiary education of excellence for the arts, but budgets are spent on attracting students, with no strategy to ensure graduates can stay.
An Instagram post from What if the City was a Theatre? reads: ‘‘Imagine finding an internationally acclaimed dance performance in a carpark?’’
Well, back in the 1990s there were any number of arts projects in carparks. Choreographer Lisa Densem staged her first fulllength work in one – before moving to Berlin. Half-empty buildings of all kinds were used for groundbreaking cultural projects – work by now global trailblazers like Taika Waititi, Flight of the Conchords and Fat Freddy’s Drop, finding new collective forms with each other.
Youmight have noticed that post-lockdown, this city already has no lack of vacant space. It’s time to look again at creating space for our artists, but make those spaces more enduring – to embed artists in our city’s fabric.
A service I co-founded at the time of the last global recession, Urban Dream Brokerage, has just been relaunched to work with property owners to broker the use of vacant space. In a call-out for ideas for commissions, Iwas bowled over by the number of new artist collectives keen to take on space to develop work.
As the property market escalates, increasing numbers of apartments are built, and as a recession deepens, there will be an even greater need for spaces for exchange and community. Only the very few can afford to live in a theme park.