Why bother?
It is a function of local councils to manage the sensory impact of the environment we live in. This means council must spend money on public art and beautification. It must not be viewed as some thing that gets the first cut.
Housing housing housing
The biggest thing I believe the council can do to support the Arts in Wellington is to directly address the cost of living. It is utterly worthless funding workshop spaces, public art, or recreational areas, when so many in our city can barely afford to live or have any time to relax. The lack of affordable living in Wellington is directly killing the artistic environment that we have paraded for decades. With no free time only the tiny handful of fulltime professionals can ever hope to provide shows, performances, writings, etc.
Even for parks and gardens the costs of living makes it harder and harder for council to maintain these facilities. The more it costs for someone to live here the fewer staff can be hired. This then results in fewer facilities being able to be maintained. Closing parks, pools, community centres, walking paths, etc. Things that are important for making life in Wellington worth living.
Without affordable living every other effort will fail.
Other areas of support
As we address the cost of living there are other efforts I want the council to make to help create an environment that encourages artisitc expression and support residents and visitors in supporting our artists.
- Work with busking and business groups to identify and build areas for busking
- Support busking and smaller performance groups through subsidising donation/payment systems
- Build a centralised feed where local groups and individuals can advertise their shows, performances, art, music, etc.
- Reallocate space in heavily paved over areas for trees to create much more pleasent spaces.
- Work with the gardens team to see if we can help community groups take ownership of gardens in their area. And how we could support such efforts.
- Incentivize building and land owners to install public art. A mural on side of a 6 story concrete wall changes the way the area feels. We already have multiple examples of this in Wellington and it must be encouraged.
- Ring fence funds to provide grants to inexperienced artists so they can focus on learning the skills needed to be successful. Otherwise we risk funds only ever going to the same handful of people for decades.
- Providing a section of the budget for local hapu to decide where it is allocated.
Art and nature are important for making life worth living. Turning into a place where people work, sleep, and die must never be acceptable. Wellington is a place that has been proud of its artistic side in the past. We must show that pride through supporting it in return.
Authorised by James Sullivan. James@TFG.nz