Botanic gardens kiosk floral exhibit could go
Award-winning artist and costume designer Jenny Gillies is fighting to keep her exhibition space at Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens tea kiosk.
Christchurch City Council staff want to remove Gillies’ exhibition and lease the space to the Canterbury Horticultural Society instead. The society is one of four groups or people, including Gillies, who expressed an interest in the building earlier this year when the council advertised for potential tenants.
Gillies launched her Enchanted Garden exhibition, featuring up to
50 floral costumes, at the refurbished tea kiosk in December
2016 and charges for public entry. Originally designed as a six-month exhibition, her temporary lease has been extended three times and has now been extended until the council decided on the kiosk’s future use.
Gillies wanted her exhibition to become a permanent fixture at the kiosk, and told the council this at a meeting in July last year.
A council staff report recommended the kiosk be used as a community-based space, rather than for commercial use. Because all other three prospective tenants were deemed commercial entities, staff favoured the the lease going to the Horticultural Society.
However, at a Linwood-CentralHeathcote Community Board meeting on Monday, Gillies’ husband, John Gillies, argued Enchanted Garden was not a commercial operation and should
be classed as a community-based entity alongside the Horticultural Society’s bid.
Gillies charges an entry fee of $10 an adult and $5 for seniors, students and children five and over, but she said that was to cover her operation costs, including hiring casual part-timers when she was not there. She does not collect a wage herself.
The community board decided on Monday that the Enchanted Garden should be classed as community use, but that the council would have the final say.
Speaking on behalf of Gillies, Ali Jones said Gillies was overwhelmed with the support she received at the board meeting.
‘‘She really appreciated that the board understood that she was not big business. She’s not a corporate entity. She does not draw a wage. She puts everything back into it.’’
The Horticultural Society has been in existence since the 1850s and was the largest club of its kind for home gardeners in New Zealand.
The society wanted to use the tea kiosk for a number of different activities including seminars, education and training, floral design, displays, plant sales, office space, and society meetings.
It also planned to partner with other like-minded entities including the Friends of the Botanic Gardens.