Take the EcoMatters challenge

EcoMatters is encouraging cyclists to discover the city’s street art scene during October, and be in to win $1,000 in prizes.

The Street Art Bike Challenge, is a month-long photo treasure hunt by bike in which people are invited to look for street art across Auckland and share their photos.

EcoMatters Bike Hubs manager Brent Bielby says a similar challenge in 2020, the Power Box Bike Challenge, was well received by the community.

“This year we wanted to expand the event to encompass all public art, not just power boxes.

“It’s amazing how much street art there is around Auckland. Once your eyes are open and you start to look around, you become hooked on trying to find different pieces, and the city never looks the same again. And it’s a great excuse to jump on your bike and explore your surroundings.”

The challenge is a family-friendly event all ages can enjoy while adhering to Covid-19 restrictions and physical distancing.

To enter, get on your bike and discover local street art; take a photo that includes the artwork, you, and your bike; and share your photo with the #StreetArtBikeChallenge hashtag in a public post on your Facebook or Instagram profile with the street name and suburb. Find out more at www.ecomatters.org.nz/bikechallenge.

Move to Living Wage brought forward

The Trusts has announced that it is moving its entire workforce to a living wage, bringing forward earlier plans by almost two years.

The move will cost the organisation almost $750,000 per annum and is set to benefit more than 300 staff across 35 retail stores, hospitality venues and hotels.

The wage increase will be implemented ahead of schedule despite widespread disruption to the hospitality industry from COVID-19.

All staff will see a new living wage rate of at least $22.75 per hour, which is $2.75 above the government’s new minimum wage level. All waged employees who currently earn above the organisation's starting rate will also receive an increase of $2 per hour. The increase will be in addition to a 10% support payment to acknowledge their front line staff working during the pandemic.

Trusts CEO Allan Pollard says the living wage was originally planned for the second quarter of 2023 however new financial projections mean these plans can now take immediate effect.

“It is our aim to ensure that our team members feel more valued and that this will make a material difference to their wellbeing and that of their whānau.”

WestWards Community Voice

Rational Planning

I, like many, started September cleaning up storm debris and fixing flood damage. Again, this storm highlighted ongoing maintenance issues and shone a spotlight on Council practices.

Our roads experienced multiple serious slips. Locations with poor roadside maintenance and blocked culverts and drains were particularly hard hit, while well-maintained areas came through the storm relatively unscathed. One of our Local Board Plan ‘Outcomes’ is ‘resilient communities’. Good maintenance is the basis of preparedness, and preparedness is resilience. It reminds me to keep focusing on the basics. This storm also highlighted the inefficiencies and unwanted impacts of Council’s current approach regarding disposal of organic material in Waitākere. For two years now Council has demanded that organic material like soil and weed vegetation from the Waitākere Ranges must be wrapped in industrial grade plastic and taken to a ‘contaminated landfill’ south of Auckland as a precaution against the possible spread of kauri dieback. You might have noticed the enormous plastic bags lining community weed bins. Similarly soil from the slips must be wrapped and taken to a rural site South of Auckland. The environmental and cost impact is significant. Our community ‘weed-bins service’ for example, more than doubled in cost. Of course, this also increases carbon emissions, which flies in the face of Council’s policy to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. The cost of transporting one bin or truckload of slip material 92 km (184 km round trip) easily goes unnoticed in Council’s budgets, but when big volumes are involved, the costs are breath-taking. A glaring example was the 2500m³ of slip material that fell on Te Henga Rd, Waitākere. To transport this material to Council-approved landfill (in large trucks) would have entailed 23,000 km of travel. I wrote to the Mayor and Councillors challenging this, suggesting the old Waitākere Quarry (less than 1km down the same road) could be used to process this organic material. The money saved would be significant and could be used to restore the Waitākere Quarry for public recreational use as long promised..

Council’s precautionary approach is neither rational or warranted.

Kauri dieback disease is transmitted by a waterborne organism that can be carried on a single speck of soil. Floods wash vast quantities of suspended solids across the land, which makes Council’s precautionary demands ineffectual against localised spread. Moreover, Council requirements risk spreading kauri dieback further than flooding ever could. It’s impossible to reduce carbon emissions whilst demanding increased transportation, especially for questionable reasons. Council’s planning must involve practical solutions. Ken Turner – WestWards

Advertisement

New in the ’hood

Two critical positions in the arts fabric of Waitakere, one at the Corban Estate Arts Centre (CEAC) and another at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Art Gallery (Te Uru), have new faces. I know that each individual expected to take up these roles ‘live’ and on site. They are both dancing with the reality of arts leadership in our online world.

Luana Walker (Waikato–Tainui) has taken on the mantle of directorship of CEAC. Despite our current lockdown, the excitement in response to her appointment has not diminished and she is relishing the time that she has to get to know her team without the distractions of the dayto-day running of the estate. Luana comes to CEAC after considerable time in arts management at Auckland Council and Auckland Museum. She has a track record of building strong and vibrant teams who can deliver across the spectrum of arts, education, event delivery and site management.

Luana Walker. Photo by Tyler Te Ano.

But it’s the Luana, who last year sold her car and bought a glasshouse, that interests me. The first lockdown heightened her awareness that what once was deemed to be ‘up there’ suddenly seemed irrelevant when cooped up at home with no opportunity to go anywhere. At the same time global warming was front and centre on the news every week and while Covid-19 changed the world overnight, she shared that sense that our planet was taking a breath of fresh air while planes, trains and cars were grounded.

Returning to work in a central city office lost its glow and after many months she suddenly realised that she hadn’t filled up her car with petrol, let alone driven it. That moment cemented the decision that the car could go. The pandemic had made seeds one of the most soughtafter products (along with flour and toilet paper). Blessed with a large backyard and piles of infamous Titirangi clay the idea of a greenhouse was born.

The car was sold, the kitset greenhouse purchased and erected after long weekends in the pouring rain. She describes with relish the process of raising seedlings, composting, installing water tanks and the first ‘pickable’ crops. This woman does not do things by halves.

In the global wash of talent around the globe, now pushed by currents of the Covid pandemic, good fortune sometimes comes our way. The return of Tendai Mutambu (pronouns: he/him/his) from the UK, where he worked as Assistant Curator of Commissions and Public Programmes at Spike Island in Bristol [an inner city and harbour area where artists, designers, writers, students, artist-led organisations and creative businesses work together], is one such blessing. Prior to going to the UK three years ago, Tendai had built a significant catalogue of curatorial project experience in New Zealand both in Tamaki Makaurau and at the Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth.

He has now stepped into the role of Acting Curator at Te Uru for the next year while Chloe Geoghegan takes leave. His wealth of knowledge and experience internationally and locally is a gift to the programme that Te Uru will deliver over coming months.

In order to dig a little deeper into what these two new players in the Westie scene will bring to the creative life of our communities, I sent them each a set of questions.

What are the wellsprings of your life and experience that have led you to your current profession?

Luana: I would say that it is people. I’ve been very fortunate throughout my life to work alongside and for some incredible people. They have shared their expertise and experiences and supported me through numerous challenges. They have helped shaped my career through mentorship and opportunity. It’s my belief that the investment we make in people is one of the greatest gifts and the biggest responsibility we have. This might be a greenhouse analogy, but it’s the people that we grow and nurture today that will become our leaders of tomorrow.

Tendai: I enjoyed making art well into my late teens but gradually I began to enjoy looking at, and writing about, other people’s work a lot more than making my own. I studied art history through the correspondence school – my school in small town New Zealand didn’t offer it as a subject. I was hooked immediately and I did quite well so I decided to pursue it at university. After a few internships, including at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy, which had a stellar modern art collection, I realised I was more interested in contemporary art and working with living artists who are responding to our times.

Within your arts practice, what are your passions?

Luana: Early in my arts career it was all about creation. I loved to see artwork evolve and the hardest thing was deciding when a work was finished. As I moved into other roles throughout my career, creation was still front and centre, but I was fortunate to learn kaitiakitanga [guardianship] during my time at Tāmaki Paenga Hira. To care for and protect art resonated with me and as you consider the generations that will come after you, it becomes even more important that we ensure knowledge, narratives, and our history are preserved.

Tendai: I’ve been working quite a lot recently with artists’ film and video – curating it into screenings for cinemas, galleries, and film festivals including the London Film Festival in 2018. I’ve also been working as an assistant producer for an artist in the UK who is making her first feature-length film. It’s a recent development in my interests but it’s been really rewarding. Beyond that I have a practice as a writer. Mostly I write essays for artists’ publications but occasionally I write criticism as well.

What is your ‘go to’ R&R?

Luana: At the time of building, I would never have said it would be the greenhouse, but now that it is complete, I find the tending of plants very relaxing. Sowing seeds, watching them sprout, waiting for flowers to emerge and seeing the insect world become part of the growing process is really satisfying. I’ll also admit that I frequent Bunnings a lot.

Tendai: It gets a bit complicated working with art for a living and trying to use it as a tool to relax but I still find looking at and thinking about art – without the pressure of deadlines – relaxing. When I’m not doing that I turn to books. (I’m currently making my way through Percival Everett’s short stories, and re-reading Forty-one False Starts