Community Development
The Waikato Show
As part of the team at Arts Waikato, we ran kids arts activities as part of The Waikato Show. We had hundreds of kids come through over the three days, and had a blast. The highlight for me was hosting ‘Velvet’, the giant eel tapestry. We were able to hang over 40 metres of her in the hall, and made our own stunning section for this project with the kids.
Mangaohoi Stream Care Group Youth Art Project
I was honoured to spend a morning helping out with this wonderful project in Te Awamutu. This fabric-based art project was combined with education about the flora and fauna of the stream, a history overview by Jenny, and some planting afterwards. What a great day out for the kids and young people. The kids were full of awesome energy!
The Legends Project
A collaborative community art project, made almost entirely out of cardboard!
A group of creative people from the Hutt Valley have been working with artist and facilitator Paul Bradley to create artworks on the theme of personal and cultural legends and heroes. With Sharmila Pillay, Yasanthi Subasinghe, Rowel Madrisa, Helen Williamson, Jojo Garcia Jowett, Mecca Garcia Bowman, Maxine Edwards, Catherine Green, Steve Burroughs and Graham Wolf.
Celebrating love, strength and courage.
Please check www.hvca.org.nz or call 04 5683488 for weekly
opening times or check the door sign.
Prison Art Tutoring
Since 2007 I have been working as a prison art tutor in Rimutaka and Wellington Prisons teaching drawing and painting to adult men on a weekly basis. The prison community is a very specific one with unique needs. Understanding and working with these needs is crucial to the success of my work. Prisoners lives usually involve very little initiative or creativity so I see it as important to the mental health and rehabilitation of these men to foster these attributes. I believe that connecting with creativity can be a key part of rehabilitation. I aim to empower these men by working with them to set and achieve goals – however big or small. I often see significant shifts in self esteem amongst the inmates, which is immensely encouraging.
Read more about my work in prison here, or watch the TVNZ7 documentary.
Catchment Community
I am the arts facilitator for Catchment Community. This is a community lead art project based in Happy Valley in Wellington. The site is next to the old Bagel Factory on Happy Valley Road next to the Owhiro Bay Stream. The project is open to whoever wants to be involved. We aim to complete the creative process by the end of 2011, and to have the artwork(s) built and installed by February 2012. We are running this project to strengthen the local community, provide an opportunity to connect with an important piece of land and stream, and to create a destination - a place for people to enjoy and spend time.
We believe that community lead projects are important as the outcome will benefit from the diversity of people involved. The artwork will be relevant to the site, to local communities, and to those involved in the process.
What will we make? At this stage we don’t know! This is because the artwork will come out of a facilitated process. In other words, the people involved will decide.
We are in the beginning stages of this project, so please feel free get in touch with us if you would like to be involved.
For more information, and the most recent news regarding this project, please visit the blog.
Crossing Lines
More than 400 people involved in the Māori, Somali and artistic communities of South Wellington worked together on this project to find common threads and ways of examining some of the challenges they face. This process culminated in Crossing Lines - a professional theatre show backed by an exhibition.
My role in this project was video installation designer and exhibition designer. Working with members of the community and the material produced over the 3 years of this project was an interesting, challenging, and rewarding process.
Read more about the project here and read a review of the performance here.
ReGeneration Mural Project Complete!
I’ve been working as a facilitator with local Wellington schools, the City Arts team at Wellington City Council, the Brooklyn community, and Enviroschools, to plan and design a mural. This project was a community collaborative process open to all who wanted to contribute.
This project involved submissions from students at schools throughout the Wellington region. A core group of teenagers were involved at every step with decision making. A detailed description of this project and the community involvement process is available here.
And, if you are in Wellington, this is where you can visit the mural.
