He Poroporoaki

Over Easter weekend a local historian passed away. Don Stafford had done much to ensure the stories, historical events and lives in particular of local Maori were well documented.

Don was a hugely generous character who was always willing to offer insight and advice. He very kindly reviewed text for The Volcanic Heartland- a guide to our districts public art and on more than one occasion lent his expertise to our planning of public art works here in Rotorua.

Opportunities for significant public artworks in a small city are not so frequent, and so usually will honour or make reference to notable figures or moments in history. The recorders and keepers of our stories are then very central to much of our preparation for public art works.

So, we will miss Don, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge the role of the historians, the writers and nga kaumatua Maori and Pakeha in building the foundation for so many public art works.

Haere atu ra. Haere ki nga tupuna kua riro ki te po.

UK-Ireland Public Arts Investigation

This blog has been set up to share thoughts and experiences on public arts.

The establishment of the blog is absolutely linked to my fast approaching departure to the UK and Ireland to investigate approaches to public arts development, including strategic plans and policies, funding and community involvement.

As the arts officer at the Rotorua District Council (RDC) I am responsible for developing and implementing arts policies. These policies enable Council to support a huge range of programmes and projects. If you are curious about what these projects might be then I invite you to visit www.creativerotorua.org.nz.

RDC's Art in Public Policy was revised last in 2008. As with all public arts policies and plans around the country, approaches or strategies from other territorial authorities both in and outside of NZ, influenced the original policy development. There are some familiar strands through public arts policies everywhere, with notable variations usually around selection, staffing and funding.

For a small city of 65,000+ people, my feeling is that Rotorua has a reasonably strong collection of public art, including murals, carving and sculpture. Of course this is a reflection of an area which has been a cultural destination for well over 100 years.

I will be looking at how we can further develop and improve our public arts programme. Maintaining this blog will be fulfil part of my responsibility to share the experiences and learning while abroad.

A Winston Churchill Fellowship is enabling this investigation, for which I am hugely grateful.