Tēnā koutou to our beloved Gap Filler community, supporters, collaborators and friends.

Yesterday, Gap Filler Trust formalised the long-planned decision to wind up the Trust after 15 fun-filled years of reimagining Ōtautahi Christchurch and bringing life to our city’s spaces. The surplus assets of the Trust will be gifted to Life in Vacant Spaces Charitable Trust.

Our Journey

Since our inception in 2010 following the Canterbury earthquakes, Gap Filler has been dedicated to igniting vibrant community spaces. What began as a response to disaster evolved into a powerful movement for creative urban renewal and civic engagement that rippled out far beyond Christchurch’s city limits.

We've worked tirelessly to connect people to place, foster community and resilience, and demonstrate how temporary and community-led activations can lead to lasting positive change. From the Dance-O-Mat to Moodshift, the Pallet Pavilion to the Good Spot Car Park – each project has been a testament to the creativity, resilience, and collaborative spirit of the people of Christchurch. Together, we've shown that even in the face of devastation, communities can reimagine their surroundings and create spaces of joy, connection, and meaning.

Over the years, Gap Filler has delivered a monumental amount of work.

The Pallet Pavilion alone hosted more than 200 community events across its year-and-a-half of existence, and that was just one of 22 projects we brought to life in 2012.

We spent seven years (from 2016-23) developing and running the Placemaking at One Central programme with Fletcher Living between Manchester, Madras, Armagh, and Lichfield Streets. That programme produced 27 community installations, including the much-loved Detour Pump Track and giant orange #ChchSwing, plus 113 small events, and 50 larger events such as the Bloco de Carnaval and major concerts like Fatboy Slim at Gloucester Green.

Other favourite projects include the Think Differently Book Exchange, which helped popularise so-called Lilliput Libraries; the Cycle-Powered Cinema that launched on the site where the Cycle Trading Company’s building had been; RAD Bikes, which began as a Gap Filler project and has for many years now been an independent not-for-profit community bike workshop; the cheeky Inconvenience Store artist residency project that occupied an empty shop in Cathedral Junction in 2014; a series of community pitch-for-the-pot Soup events that seed funded many other local community projects; the Super Street Arcade giant joystick that occupied the corner of Tuam and High Streets and featured new, bespoke games by local developers and students; and the Open City hacked parking meter that produced tickets directing people to locals’ favourite free things to do in the city.

Our work has been globally recognised with international awards, and clients, speaking opportunities, and collaborative projects in at least 10 countries.

We signed off with a final 8 Days of Play interactive event series as part of this year’s World Buskers Festival at the end of January.

The Current Situation

For many years, we raised most of the money for our charitable projects in Ōtautahi Christchurch by working as paid consultants on creative urban regeneration projects all around Aotearoa and further afield. (Grant funding provided about 30% of our income in a typical year.) Mostly we weren’t sought out to work in other post-disaster settings. We were engaged to work in healthy cities that were seeking even stronger citizen participation in shaping their places.

We feel this is relevant to Christchurch: while our work here was born out of the disasters, the principles of citizen participation and creative interventions are as relevant to the current city as to the wrecked city of 15 years ago. But it feels far less urgent to people, now that there’s a beautiful and functioning city around it.

So engagement with our work and sources of income have both ebbed. Grant opportunities have become more competitive, and – a sign of our success, really – much of the work we were doing as urban consultants has now been incorporated into the standard services of much larger consultancies such as placemaking, participatory design, and temporary projects to trial future possibilities.

We are heartened to see new organisations and initiatives established across the city and we have been actively working to ensure that our current projects find new homes with capable stewards who will honour and continue their purpose and legacy. (Go check out the Dance-O-Mat in its new home at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora.)

Gratitude and Celebration

As we prepare to close this chapter, we are overwhelmed with gratitude. To our dedicated staff, whose passion and creativity have been the lifeblood of Gap Filler; to our funders and supporters, who believed in our vision and made our work possible; to our collaborators, artists and partners, who amplified our impact through their expertise and resources; and most importantly, to the people of Christchurch, who embraced our projects, contributed their energy, and transformed these activations into true community treasures. Thank you.

Special thanks must be said to the many volunteers who shared ideas, got their hands dirty building and organising projects, provided free or heavily discounted materials and expertise, offered land or buildings, served on our board, picked up rubbish and kept sites tidy, and so much more. There are thousands of you.

With far too many supporters and partners over the years to name, we would like to single out the 2010/2011 Urban Design team at Christchurch City Council, who first believed in Gap Filler and backed that belief up with funding and many other forms of support.

Looking Forward

We are taking this time to archive most of our projects onto the University of Canterbury QuakeStudies platform so that others can continue to learn from and be inspired by what was achieved here. Our Gap Filler website will stay live for one year after closure.

Though Gap Filler is winding up, the need for creative civic action remains as vital as ever. Our city has come a long way since those uncertain days of 2010, and while there is still much to be done, we believe that Christchurch has the heart, the vision, and the determination to continue evolving into an ever more vibrant, inclusive, and innovative city. We encourage you to be brave and proactive citizens, and to urge your local Councils, Community Boards, developers, and civic institutions to support and fund local artists, creatives, and all the ‘soft stuff’ that makes our communities unique and great.

With deepest gratitude and hope for the future, The Gap Filler Trust Board and Team

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