05 Dec 2024
In 2017 Northland artist Sasha Wilson was asked to create a work for the annual Wairua of Kaikohe exhibition. She and her father made a huge octopus (wheke) out of wire and lights, the inspiration coming from the town’s historic name, Te Pu o te Wheke.
“We put the octopus in the show and people said, ‘This is such a cool thing – why doesn’t Kaikohe have something like this full-time?’ And I thought, why not?” Sasha says.
Sasha decided to walk the talk and create a permanent gallery space for artists that would bring colour to the town and community. She asked the landlord of the vacant shop where the Wairua of Kaikohe exhibition had been held for a good deal on the rent, and established Te Wheke Arts, a gallery and hub for creative outreach projects in Northland.
After two years of business, Sasha wanted to get the community more involved and turned Te Wheke Arts into a charitable trust.
Through a Creative New Zealand mentorship programme designed to develop business confidence and facilitated by Creative Northland, Sasha was paired up with Rawene based mentor, Janet Nixon. Janet says her focus was to support Sasha extend the trust’s tentacles further into the region.
“Together, we applied for funding to launch an arts outreach project. I supported Sasha by helping write the funding application, meeting weekly to determine the necessary information, and drafting the budget spreadsheet based on her input,” says Janet.
Through their work, The Wheke Arts charitable trust received $350,000 over three years from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Arts Access Aotearoa was engaged to help plan the project to establish Te Wheke as a sustainable arts centre in Kaikohe.
Te Wheke now offers clay, painting and music workshops. It also offers a form of art therapy, where groups, individuals and young people can attend workshops to support wellbeing through creativity.
Sasha says the funding allowed the trust to make a massive impact by taking art workshops on the road around Te Tai Tokerau.
“We were able to load our car up and give people an opportunity to experience doing art and the amount of people that we've touched in that regard has just been amazing. We were able to reach out to people on the far side of Hokianga. We were able to reach Mangatupere, all these different areas which didn't have access,” she says.
For those without transport, internet, or disposable income, Sasha says access to art brought some much-needed joy. That funding has now been exhausted, but Sasha is still trying to create joy and says the trust has enough to pay the rent and bills.
Creative Northland advisor Melanie Chandler-Winters says the project was seen as a pathway to wellbeing through art and a way to help artists.
“Artists are usually good at art, but when it comes to running workshops or businesses, they need a bridge across the chasm, and that’s where we step in,” she says.
Creative Northland has been working on an arts and culture strategy that aims to show the Kaipara, Whangarei and Far North District councils that the region’s creativity and creative industry supports jobs and attracts tourists.
“We’re actually showing what these artists are capable of and putting them out in the community … as soon as a creative project comes into the region, then they know to work with [Creative Northland], because we have that direct connection with all the artists,” says Melanie.
Museums are also a big focus, Melanie says, and there is a concerted effort to make them more appealing and relevant to young people. At the Waimate North Museum, kids are learning about older technologies like gramophones, alongside new technologies such as writing stories digitally and doing podcasts.
Creative Northland is also working closely with iwi partners, whether it’s running activations at different marae or digitally capturing the cultural heritage in rural Pangaru.
There is also a lovely connection with the local marae, where there are now art installations on weekends and other artists doing things in the garden.
Sasha says one of the goals of Te Wheke is to showcase some of the traditional Māori arts and give them more prominence.
“The majority of Kaikohe is made up of Māori, so that's why I concentrate a lot on Matariki. I like to celebrate it, and so that's what we do here,” she says.
Sasha says she has benefited from the business, organisational, and fundraising support that she has been given through Creative Northland and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. She has learnt how to reach out and build relationships with those around her; she is now happily playing the role of a conduit in her own community. Her ultimate dream is to own the building so the trust can have a bit more permanence and she’d love to offer carving, weaving, and traditional arts workshops, as well as contemporary arts.
Te Wheke’s tentacles continue to stretch out and bring people into the fold. Sasha points to a previous experience she created for Matariki that involved kids making patterns in a glow-in-the-dark cave. It inspired a young local wahine to create her own event along similar lines. She put in a successful application for funding, and it attracted over 2,000 people.
“I really think that our town is going to push through and it's going to become something. It's starting. All the things that we're doing at the moment are probably pivotal to how our dreams look in the future,” Sasha says.
This series brings to life the benefits of local arts and culture investment. Read more about localism here
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