"Creative Spaces" in the Land of the Long White Cloud

Indian dancers Yaleney Sivapalan and Ashleen Singh perform at the Creative Spaces conference. Photo by Alistair Eames

The e-mail was from Penny Eames, the director of an organization called Arts Access Aotearoa (AAA). Would I come to New Zealand in the late summer (February 2003) to participate in a national conference "celebrating Creative Spaces?" As far as I could tell, the reference to "Creative Spaces" was the Kiwi equivalent of what we call community arts. Now I know differently.

At first glance, "Creative Spaces" do resemble community arts programs in the U.S. But the more I learned, the more I recognized a subtle difference. That difference is rooted in the special significance of both place and the natural world to those who live in Aotearoa or "land of the long white cloud." In the context of community arts, this means that where art happens is as important as the "what" and the "for whom."

Aotearoa

Within the scope of both geological and human history, Aotearoa is a very new place. Formed only 30 million years ago by the clash of the of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates, the two islands that make up New Zealand's 102,000 square miles include some of the most diverse landscapes and biology on the planet. Located 1,600 to 2,400 miles south of the equator on the edge of the Tasman Sea, it is also one of Earth's most isolated countries.

Anthropologists say this is why migrating Polynesians only started coming to these islands about 1,200 years ago. When Pakeha (European colonists) began arriving in Aotearoa in early 1800s they found a well organized and highly competitive multitribal society with no discernable national identity. In fact, common usage of "Maori" to describe the indigenous people of New Zealand did not manifest until the 20th Century. What did link the tribes was a deep belief in the spiritual sanctity of the land and a veneration of tribal ancestors. For them, all things (animate and inanimate), all places and all spirits are an inseparable part of a connected whole.

Over the course of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the mixing of Maori and Pakeha cultures was marked by violence, exploitation and a search for common ground. More recently, there have been serious attempts to protect indigenous rights and redress past injustices. Modern New Zealand has worked hard to reconcile these complex histories. And, there is no denying that the resulting social, creative and spiritual amalgam has produced a unique fusion of cultures.

My experience at the Creative Spaces Conference brought this home to me. My role, as I understood it, was to give a keynote about community arts in the U.S. Upon arrival, though, I was told that I would have one more job. It seems my elder status (advanced age) and the distance I had come, made me the spokesperson for the manuhiri (the traveled guests). Because New Zealand is officially bicultural (Maori and European or Pakeha), Maori cultural protocols are an important part of many official gatherings. Therefore, I was told, after a mihi (welcoming) by a representative of the assembled manukura (leaders), it was my job to respond — not with some random howdy from the folks in the U.S., but with a kind of ritualized speech. Suffice it to say, I spent the evening practicing.

The next morning, on cue, I began my part with the traditional Maori greeting to all [i], followed by a short homily honoring the place of our gathering, our host's ancestors and a description of the river and mountain where I receive my spiritual sustenance. After I sang one of my own songs, everybody joined in a waiata (a Maori song) and finished with hongi (pressing noses and foreheads). With that, the conference had taken an important step towards becoming a "Creative Space."

Needless to say, for me this was a different beginning to an arts conference. Over the next few days my education continued. Since this was the first national gathering of the artists and organizations in the Creative Spaces network, Penny Eames, AAA's director made sure that all of the 300 attendees had an opportunity to tell their stories. It began appropriately, with the story of the first Creative Space.

Creative Spaces

Dr. Julia Aranui-Faed initiated the Creative Space concept in 1986 at the Cherry Farm Psychiatric Hospital in Dunedin. Dr. Aranui-Faid, then the hospital's medical superintendent, wanted to move beyond traditional therapeutic approaches by using the arts. She established a Creative Expressions Unit at the hospital, which employed an arts administrator and "artist tutors" to work with patients. This unit, later called Kimi Ora (the search for life), was designed as a dedicated multidisciplinary arts studio at the center of the hospital. This initial "Creative Space" embodied the belief that art making is, by its nature, healing. It also represented another distinctive idea: As art is created in a space, the healing capacity of that space grows, over time.

Reflecting further on the genesis and evolution of the Creative Spaces movement, Penny Eames points to a number of influences, both Maori and Pakeha:

"In Maori there is a separation between Tapu (under religious restriction) and Noa (free from Tapu). Places have one or the other. There is also a concept that some people have Mana (spiritual power, authority derived from that, prestige, ability to do things well). This is a common term in New Zealand and we don't translate it very often. This association with some people being spiritual, which has nothing to do with religion, influences our ideas and acceptance of the spiritual generally.

Places can be Tapu. We use rituals to cleanse places. Blessings at dawn are seen as really important both for Maori and Pakeha. This is hard to describe. Food is Noa. Body is Noa. Head is usually Tapu, The meeting house is Tapu. Land can be made either and can change. We just know. I don't know why, maybe because for generations we have been told and we respect it.

Another big influence on the creative space concept was the Playcentre movement in New Zealand. That movement was set up by women after the Second World War as a mutual support organization. It was very democratic. Lots of women who trained to be Playcentre supervisors have ended up in politics or in senior positions in business and government. The philosophy is about believing in people's ability to grow to their full potential. Accepting people where they are and enabling them to get further

The old psychiatric hospitals were terrible, regulated places. We believed that people needed the choice and the freedom to come and go into the Creative Expression unit as a right. The result was healing.

I stress that the Creative Spaces are the "Third Place" for people to go. The third place, not home or work is seen as really important in social communities. The creative process is a purifying process — the creative spaces themselves taking on that creation. Colour, art and music, plus food, give a spiritually "clean" environment. In this environment negativity and violence changes to positive and creative."

One of the first arenas outside of the mental health sector to embrace the Creative Spaces concept was New Zealand's correctional system. A shift in national correctional philosophy in the late 1980s from pure custody to "habilitation" [ii] gave Penny Eames, then at the Arts Council of New Zealand , an opportunity to test the Cherry Farm model in another institutional milieu. Early council-supported programs at the Wanganui and Rangipo Prisons demonstrated that the arts could make prisons safer and less dehumanizing for both prisoners and staff, and assist in "the reintegration of inmates into the community." [iii] The arts have had a significant presence in New Zealand's prisons ever since.

Over the next decade the success of these programs spawned a nationwide network of over 90 Creative Spaces serving youth, prisoners, refugees, seniors, people with disabilities and more. [iv] This could not have happened, though, without Arts Access Aotearoa. In 1995, Penny Eames left the Arts Council to create an organization specifically to help local entities establish new Creative Spaces. Since that time, AAA has been a principal driving force for the development and growth of New Zealand's Creative Space movement.

Many of the newer Creative Spaces have emerged in response to the needs of young New Zealanders. According to the World Health Organization, New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the industrialized world. This alarming statistic has spurred funders and youth agencies throughout the country to investigate new ways of connecting to youth.

Te Ao Marama Youth Arts Center in Hastings is a good example. In the late 1990s graffiti meant vandalism to the Hastings business community. To the young taggers, "graf art" was their only outlet, but also a cause for arrest. Hastings youth officer Wiki Malton, who helped develop the program, says Te Ao Marama, which means "the world of light," was created to use artists to turn "all this negative energy into something positive." Since June of 2000, artists like Dave Waugh have come to the Te Ao Marama studio to regularly challenge young graf artists to take their craft seriously.

"The first time they come," Waugh told me, "they arrive with their hoods pulled over their heads and don't communicate. They start with wanting to copy American gang images, but once they've done that, they move on to what's really important … and start using their own motifs that are influenced by Polynesian images."

Now over 30 young people ages 12 to 18 are involved in the program. They are attending classes, holding exhibitions, creating hip-hop-inspired theater and winning awards for their work. In 2002, Helen Clark, New Zealand's prime minister, who interestingly, is also New Zealand's minister of culture, called the program "evidence of how much Hastings people care for their young." Most important, business owners who were once advocating maximum punishment for taggers are now providing financial support for the program.

A similar effort called Legal Arts operates out of a Christchurch-based Creative Space called Creation. The Legal Arts twist is that they have turned graf-art "victims" into customers. In addition to honing their chops with some of the best artists in the area, young graffers also learn how to engage local businesses as mural designers. As a result, these young artists have produced over 30 murals as a paid service to business owners throughout Christchurch.

Legal Arts recently became a part of Creation, another new and fast growing Christchurch arts program with a focus on youth. Just 18 months ago, Director Adam Hayward opened a part-time visual-arts studio in a vacant four-story building in downtown Christchurch. Today, Creation programs fill the entire building. Their programs include visual-arts and recording studios, a gallery and a 250-seat theater. The resulting dramatic increase in foot traffic to and from Creation has provided the impetus for new downtown revitalization effort. And last year, New Zealand's number one arts booster Helen Clark showed up to help celebrate their grand opening.

Another Creative Space serving a very different constituency is the ALAY [v] Community Center for Refugees and Migrants in Wellington. ALAY uses the arts as a way to reduce the isolation of newcomers to New Zealand by providing space and support for immigrant artists to teach others and share their work. At an ALAY celebration following the conference, I was treated to an amazing range of performances, artwork and food from Sri Lanka, Iran, China, Cambodia, Somalia, Columbia, Ethiopia and the Philippines.

These are just a few of the many Creative Spaces that were showcased at the conference. Even though the programs represented a wide variety of approaches and constituents, there were some shared characteristics. One distinction is a strong emphasis on local design and participant ownership. Many of the programs are multidisciplinary and also provide opportunities for participants to earn money from their work. Above all, Creative Spaces are just that — permanent "arts spaces for people on the margins of society," [vi] spaces that reflect a simple but powerful idea: that creative activities can imbue a space with healing potential.

William Cleveland is an author/musician and director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community in Minneapolis, Minn. Portions of this article also appear in Public Art Review, Fall 2003.

Notes

[i]" Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou, katoa"

[ii]Interestingly, it was during this time that U.S. penal thinking began a dramatic move in the opposite direction.

[iii] "Crying Out For Freedom," Penny Eames, Arts Council of New Zealand, Wellington, N.Z., 1994

[iv] Arts Access Aotearoa describes the full spectrum of the Creative Spaces constituency as "people with physical, sensory, intellectual or psychiatric disabilities; people receiving hospital care or addiction support; homeless or at-risk young people, people in remand or training centers; prisoners; older adults; refugees; and people living in isolation, whether domestic or institutional, in both rural and urban areas."

[v] The word ALAY means "bringing people together" in Tagalog one of the two predominate
languages of the Philippines.

[vi] "Creative Spaces," Arts Access Aotearoa, Wellington, N.Z., 2003

Original CAN/API publication: October 2003