Senior curator role still vacant
City Gallery Wellington has yet to appoint a senior Māori art curator, 18 months after its umbrella organisation, Experience Wellington, embarked on a controversial restructure.
Last year Experience Wellington’s management cited improving its connection to te ao Māori as a reason for pursuing its new structure. But despite appointing a director of Māori engagement, Awhimai Reynolds, Experience Wellington has yet to fill the role of senior curator toi – Māori, at City Gallery.
‘‘The position calls for a specific combination of skills which is challenging to find,’’ said Experience Wellington chief executive Sarah Rusholme.
‘‘Recruitment overall is causing issues across New Zealand, and this is exacerbated when the skills being sought are in demand.’’
The organisation was taking a number of steps to address the challenges. That included ensuring Māori artists were in City Gallery’s exhibition programme, and working with Māori guest curators like Shannon Te Ao, who curated the exhibition Matarau that ran between April and August this year.
Rusholme said City Gallery was also drawing on expertise from kaumātua and its senior curator Māori (taonga), Lawrence Wharerau.
Reynolds had this year taken up her director of Māori engagement role and her insights and connections were supporting Experience Wellington, Rusholme said.
That included developing its Māori strategy, which outlined how it would build a relationship with mana whenua ‘‘over time’’. Experience Wellington looked forward to implementing the strategy, Rusholme said.
‘‘Like many Pākehā-driven entities, while we have had considerable informal consultation with mana whenua, we know we need to improve engagement on a strategic level,’’ she said. ‘‘A Māori dimension is very important to City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi and a growing number of our exhibitions and events enable our audiences and our people to see, feel and connect with te ao Māori.’’
Rusholme said Experience Wellington had undertaken ‘‘considerable’’ informal consultation with Māori gallery directors, curators and academics. Other institutions seeking to appoint similar roles also had ‘‘limited success’’ as potential candidates considered a wide range of employment options available to them in a buoyant job market.
Many sectors including the arts are being hit by large numbers of vacancies as Kiwi workers are tempted by higher wages in Australia amid a cost of living crisis and soaring inflation.
Workers were also making decisions to change jobs in the wake of the pandemic.