Young Visionaries, The Old McDonalds, Porirua. Image: Robbie Whyte
Its festival fever time, with the Fringe hitting both Wellington and Dunedin, and the Performance Arcade and New Zealand Festival off the mark in the capital. Diaries are filling, and so are vacant spaces with culture.
In Dunedin the UDB kicked off this year with the wonderful Wee Book and Upcycles projects, receiving lots of local press and support. Go here for images and links.
Over summer in Wellington The Performance Arcade's Performance Lab have been enjoying the use of the high profile former Sandwiches Bar on the corner of Majoribanks and Kent as an office and space for participating artists to test out their new works. A rich and diverse program has been offered for the artists community ranging for work in progress showings, forums and presentations. Performance Arcade is on now on the Wellington waterfront and is looking really strong this year.
Scratch Naut took over a Wellington City Council space on the swanky Clyde Quay Wharf for the public workshopping of new works last week - a flagship Fringe event. Those are just two of five UDB projects that have kicked off the year in Wellington with many more in train. You can view them all here.
Our Porirua pilot finished at the end of January having placed 12 projects in four spaces over a six month period. Independent artist spaces The Living Room and Toi Wahine, had a great reception over summer and we're stoked to see the Toi Wahine collective now continue in Hartham Place under their own steam. They're currently taking submissions from young people aged 5 to 18 for an upcoming youth exhibition. Meanwhile round the corner in the windows of the Old McDonalds David Cook and Leala Falesuega's superb project with Russell and Discovery Schools incredibly continues to be exhibited in the windows of the Old McDonalds, 1 Cobham Court. Check it out when passing through.
Our thanks to the generosity of property owners in Dunedin, Wellington and Porirua for helping make our cities sing.