Creative ID: 669
Wellington
My arts or creative practice (including details about my specific focus within that art form/practice and my strengths):
I work in the exhibition and event space. I’ve developed exhibitions with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand Maritime Museum, Archives New Zealand, New Zealand Portrait Museum, Auckland Museum, and Victoria University of Wellington. I’ve also produced events, large and small, in Wellington and Christchurch (with audiences of up to 15,000 people).
I specialise in concept development (idea generation), interpretation (working out how to communicate that idea for a specific audience), design (graphic and spatial), multi-sensory experiences, writing within an exhibition context, tikanga Māori considerations (within the context of developing exhibitions and events) and health and safety. Exhibitions don’t have to be large and expensive. They can simply be about expressing an idea or telling a story and transporting people – even if just briefly – beyond their everyday world, in the hope that they may think about that topic a little differently going forward.
My track record of experience and success - or the track record of experience and success of the creative or artist that I will partner with:
I’ve always been interested in the creative arts. As a child I was a dancer and performed in school and community theatrical productions. I went on to study Drama at Victoria University, alongside Classical Studies. I have worked in and out of the arts sector throughout my professional life but have been firmly within it for the last 15 years. I’ve led projects that have toured nationwide and covered a variety of themes including Te Tiriti o Waitangi | Treaty of Waitangi, pounamu, an artist’s response to Tuia 250, America’s Cup and Team New Zealand, A look at México from the garden to the table, WW1 commemoration, and more.
Describe the experience you have had working with children or young people, teaching or facilitating creative processes:
I’ve worked with children, youth, young professionals, and adults. I have a Post Graduate Diploma in Outdoor Education, and as such ran outdoor team building and leadership programmes up to 5 days with groups from all ages and abilities. I have also led Youth at Risk programmes in Australia and Rotorua. Recently I was the industry lead on an intercultural collaboration between Victoria University of Wellington and Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. My role was to guide the team (both here and in México) through the exhibition development process.
Through this experience I developed a keen sense of what makes an exhibition exciting and interesting for its audience and what’s achievable from the side of the creatives. I’m keen to work with children to help them express their ideas and tell stories through the medium of exhibitions or events. And this doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking – it can be as simple as creating a discreet stick-your-head-in-a-box-and-something-happens experience, as long as it communicates an idea, poses a question, etc.
Why I want to be part of the Creatives in Schools programme and how my involvement will link to my creative practice:
I would really like to participate in the Creatives in Schools Programme, as I’ve been recently studying about the role of creativity in learning, happiness, and brain stimulation. I’m very interested in helping tamariki harness their creativity and finding ways they have perhaps never considered for expressing themselves or telling the stories of others.
I think we all often default to the more obvious artistic forms like drawing, painting, sculpture, music, dance, drama, or digital arts. People who don’t feel that they have a natural talent in one or more of these areas can feel uncomfortable around the notion of the arts and come to believe it’s not for them. But I don’t see the arts as a skill that you either have or don’t have. Creativity is in all of us, and exhibitions or events provide space for a range of interests and focus areas, some more hands-on, some more conceptual. It’s great for a classroom project … there’s just so much potential.