UPSTREAM: Central Part Art Trail

Media Release: For Immediate Release

Friends of Central Park present:
UPSTREAM: Central Part Art Trail
5 – 8 March 2015
10am – 5pm Daily
Central Park, Brooklyn

Added embellishments to a central Wellington gem

The upcoming Upstream Art Trail will be a temporary public art exhibition winding through Wellington’s Central park in Brooklyn. The trail will showcase the original work of 12 emerging artists, all responding to a shared theme: SHELTER.

The group behind the project is a local group of Brooklyn resident’s known as, The Friends of Central Park. The Friends formed in 2005, when the Wellington City Council developed a park restoration plan with the local community to address concerns that the park was neglected and under-used.
Since then the Council has redeveloped the playground, cleared weed infestations in the stream, built new tracks and bridges, and opened up new areas of the park for walking.
The Friends have assisted with this maintenance and redevelopment through regular working bees. This has involved replanting and maintaining the stream area, rubbish clearance, the planting of trees and spring bulbs, and improving park entrance areas with amenity planting.

The primary objective of the Friends of Central Park is to encourage people to visit and enjoy Central Park, they are currently restoring the Moturua Stream environment to good health and enhancing the park’s amenities to contribute to Central Park being a safe, accessible and attractive urban oasis for the people of Wellington as well as planning the inaugural Upstream Art Trail.

Local Wellington artist Gabby O’Connor is working with The Friends of Central Park as the ‘artist mentor’ for the 12 presenting artists helping to make their site-specific outdoor concepts a reality.
In addition to her mentoring role, Gabby is coordinating a series of art workshops at schools close to Central Park. Students from Te Aro School, St Bernards, Ridgeway School and Brooklyn School are participating in the workshops and are working with Gabby to create their own ‘Shelter’ themed pieces for the Trail.

Upstream will be a chance to revisit or discover one of Wellington’s best open spaces right in the heart of Wellington and enjoy work from some of Wellington’s most promising artists. The school project along with 12 other works will be available to view from 10am to 5pm daily from the 5 to the 8th of March, free of charge. There will be a pop up beer garden in the playground and a live music programme.

The official opening by Wellington Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, will take place on Thursday evening from 5pm.

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