06 Nov 2024
Historically, Whakatū Nelson has been a place where it’s possible to be an artist, a place artists have been drawn to. The city’s reputation grew organically, with an increasing population of artists and visitors over decades, but after Covid it was clear more was needed to sustain the city’s arts and creativity.
Nicky McDonald is Group Manager Strategy and Communications at Nelson City Council. She says the challenges for those in the arts sector were obvious after the pandemic.
“It’s a sector that has more difficulty getting consistent work or getting their work valued. The pandemic made it clear that living and working as an artist in Nelson was becoming increasingly difficult,” says Nicky.
The city’s arts strategy had been in place for 12 years, and it was time for an update.
With funding from Creative New Zealand and Nelson City Council, consultancy OD & Co started talking to the community to develop a strategy. The result was He Tātai Whetū, which translates as a constellation or cluster of stars.
“The name is a beautiful gift from Ngā Iwi o Te Tauihu and I thought it was so appropriate when I heard it. It speaks to the history of art in this place. There are little studios all over Nelson with people doing their art. And this is a chance to be brought together and to amplify what they’re doing,” Nicky says.
She sees the document as a map for the sector to follow over the next decade.
“Council wanted to champion the sector for what it does for the community, the role it plays in the economy and the role we could play to make it more sustainable. It makes sense from a lot of different angles.” She says.
The strategy received unanimous support and almost no dissenting voices in the community, however, after the devastating floods of August 2022, the Department of Internal Affairs told the Council it could reconsider where the central government funding it had been allocated was spent.
“Council thought long and hard about it. We had so many costs from that event, but we stuck to it. It is a real quality of the place. And in conversations with elected members around the strategy I often heard the word ‘essential’ coming up. They felt it was essential to make arts visible with the community,” says Nicky.
Strategies are always well-intentioned, but plenty of them end up in the bottom drawer. Bringing them to life requires action, and Nelson already has a couple of good examples that prove this umbrella strategy can work: Jewellery Week, which started in 2021, and Clay Week, which started the year after.
These events brought disparate local artists together and attracted artists and visitors from elsewhere. The festivals were made up of workshops, markets, exhibitions and studio spaces for the public to interact. And the hope is that they will continue to grow and shine a light on the work and further cement the region’s reputation.
Nicky says the new Arts Development Agency (ADA) will be tasked with continuing that momentum. Its role is to advocate for the arts, to find additional funding sources and publicise what’s on.
Anna Dean and Chris Ulutupu, who both grew up in Nelson will run the transition to the new agency. They are based at the Arts Council Nelson (ACN), which has long been supported by the council but was in need of more resources to help implement He Tātai Whetū.
Anna says a lot of work has gone into meeting and talking with artists, with some artists feeling Whakatū was relying on a reputation that had been created in the past.
“Lots of people come to Nelson to go to the Abel Tasman or for mountain biking. But for the next generation, how are we going to keep them here? If we do our jobs correctly, there should be a level of support so people can have sustainable incomes as artists.” Says Anna.
One of the primary goals of the strategy was to make Toi Māori more visible in Nelson and the council allocated $500,000 to the iwi of Te Tauihu to activate the strategy through public art and design guidance.
Chris Ulutupu says the strategy supports greater artistic autonomy.
“This is not council doing something and asking for input. This is us giving autonomy to iwi to make the decision about how they do the art and what it is. So that’s groundbreaking for us.”
Lloyd Harwood, the community arts manager at ACN, says the city centre, like many others, is struggling with shop closures and a lack of foot traffic, but art and creativity can make a difference.
“Our events take art onto the street and we have art in retailers’ windows, whether they’re empty or occupied. That’s really good for audience development, because they become comfortable seeing art and then you get more people coming to galleries and shows.” Says Lloyd.
Nicky McDonald agrees and says the council also sees a role for the arts when it comes to inner city revitalisation.
“You can shop anywhere, and a lot of people shop online, but if you want people to come into the city there needs to be something else happening. Our civic facilities and art galleries and events make it a magnet and that allows us to connect with each other. It makes a big difference to whether people feel like they are part of the community,” she says.
The Council is aware that more funding and support will be needed, and it has already committed additional support to bring the total contribution to the new agency to more than $200,000 a year for the next ten yearsas part of its long-term plan. It has also allocated $1.7 million to purchase a building that will become an Arts Hub and home to the ADA.
“What we really saw was that we needed to inject more investment, get more partners involved and step up our game in order to have the impact we wanted,” Nicky says.
Council is also committed to keeping the profile of the strategy high in the community with a communications plan that will show the positive impact art can have and how it can bring people together.
“We think everyone knows about [He Tātai Whetū] because we’ve spent so much time buried in it, but you need to do a lot of work to keep it in front of people.” Says Nicky.
Fortunately, Nelson’s creative stars already shine bright. And when you cluster them all together, they’re almost impossible to miss.
This series brings to life the benefits of local arts and culture investment. Read more about localism here
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