Media Release: For immediate release - 5 April 2012

Transforming Dunedin outlines symposium results and calls for task force members.

- Six big issues seen for city's arts and culture.

The city's arts and cultural community packed a conference room at the Dunedin Pubic Art Gallery last night to hear sector action group Transforming Dunedin deliver on its promise to provide quick results from its recent symposium.

Speakers provided an hour long presentation to the audience outlining what had been identified during nine sector workshops at the Transforming Dunedin Symposium four weeks ago. The nine workshop groups were Architecture and Urban planning, Fashion and Design, Literature, Film and Media, Music, Education, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Community Arts and Health.

The gathering was told six themes had emerged as common to all the sectors.

Spokesman Allan Baddock said:

"There is a huge amount of information and sector knowledge collated from the 350 people who attended the symposium. The group is still working through all of that, but there are some things that already stand out."

The over-arching themes that emerged from the symposium are:

1. A thirst for co-ordinated communication, and higher visibility

-A need for a strong Creative Dunedin identity for the entire arts & cultural sector, including centralised online resources linked to social media, along with digital calendars and billboards in public places profiling practitioners, events, venues etc

-Encouragement to local media to give higher profile to local practitioners and events.

-Boosting the profile of Dunedin's arts base at the airport and providing immediate information and incentive to visitors.

One suggested example was to put the city's artistic character unavoidably in front of visitors through regularly changing local sculptures or other artworks on the airport baggage carousel.

2. A need for an ongoing arts advocacy voice

-Many groups sought an ongoing arts advocacy voice to provide a single point of liaison between the local arts sector and funding organisations and formal sector organisations, and to ensure there was ongoing, co-ordinated action.

3. More Active Engagement with Tangata Whenua

-There was a recurring call to foster collaboration opportunities with Maori arts practitioners, and awareness and partnership with the broader arts community and with larger organisations such as Otago Museum, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

4. Creating more Arts spaces & infrastructure

-The idea of an arts precinct is popular across all groups, with calls for workshop and studio spaces where people can share ideas, facilities/ tools/co-ordinators and supported by mixed-use tenancy.

-There were calls to look at ways of developing incentives and ways to facilitate access to unused existing spaces, ranging from warehouses to shops to theatres. Opportunities were seen in use of temporary/'pop up' arts spaces throughout the city and moving towards the waterfront as well.

-There was also a strong emphasis on developing close connections with outlying communities and suburbs and not centralising activity and resources.

5. Adopting an Art/Design Model

-There was widespread support for the DCC to adopt an art/design model at all levels of council planning and decision-making as has been done in other cities, so that art is integrated into all new developments as a matter of course across all government depts.

6. Incubation and development of local career pathways from school to industry

-All sectors saw an urgent need for ongoing mentoring programmes among the city's youth and development of locally centred career pathways to help develop professional careers.

The presenters also confirmed to those attending that the over-arching consensus from the symposium is that an arts strategy is urgently needed for the city.

As the next step, spokesman Scott Muir encouraged those attending to submit to the DCC draft Long Term Plan/Annual Plan:

"This is democracy in action, we must make our voices heard and we encourage you all to participate in submissions both in writing and in person. There are many consultation opportunities with local government and if we want change this is an excellent medium to use to ensure our elected representatives hear what we have to say."

Submissions on the plan need to be lodged by April 17.

After that, a task force of volunteers would need to take on the challenge of developing an art strategy based on the Symposium's findings.

The presenters said the future direction and shape of the Transforming Dunedin movement now lay with the community. They encouraged those attending to join the task force and to develop sector groups for their own creative/arts endeavours to feed into the wider work. It was established at the meeting that the Music and Film/Media groups were already active, with meetings already happening or planned for those sectors.

The meeting was told that the main change needed was a change in attitudes and that was something everybody present needed to join in promoting.

About Transforming Dunedin:

www.transformingdunedin.co.nz

www.facebook.com/transformingdunedin

www.twitter.com/transformdndn

The Arts & Culture Working Group are a voluntary group representing and advocating for the arts and culture communities of Dunedin City.

The group was first established as part of Dunedin City Council's Your City Our Future (YCOF) consultation process. Material gathered from this process was included in the 2011 Annual and Long Term Plans for Dunedin City and is now also being included in the city's Spatial Plan that sets out the vision for Dunedin through to 2050.

Current members of the group are; Clare Adams, Al Baddock, Elizabeth Caldwell, Antony Deaker, Suzanne Ellison, Pip Laufiso, Bridie Lonie, Caroline McCaw, Scott Muir, Cara Paterson, Barbara Powers, Leoni Schmidt and Paul Smith.

Further information about the Spatial Plan and leadership groups can be found on the Dunedin City Council's website here.

ENDS...

© Scoop Media