UDB CRITERIA

LETS GET WELLINGTON DREAMING... Imagine your future city!

This is a call for the submission of radical, community building ideas for projects that utilise vacant or public space in Te Whanganui-a-tara. 

We want to enable work that:

• engages with its audience

• encourages participation and play

• celebratesTe Ao Maori

• promotes cultural diversity and critical political themes

• honours our whenua

We want you to be thinking about how we can shape our future, acknowledge our past and redefine care in our city.

Providing strong criteria and setting a high bar is very important to getting high quality active projects, and are duly assessed by our Advisory Panel.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions before submitting. Also to note we love ‘just ideas’ and are always happy to discuss these further…

Matawhānui - Vision

1. UDB assists through its work, Wellington City to be resilient, vibrant and have developed with its citizens a sense of optimism and possibility for its future through participation.

2. We gain strong mana whenua support and partnership to promote kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga and whaihanga

3. Engage with an increasingly diverse community who are empowered by what we do

4. We create space for collisions of ideas and transformational magic moments

5. We provide diverse physical spaces for artists and community groups to collaborate and develop long term.

6. We care for our whenua and adapting to big changes to the climate

7. Our projects provide a wellspring of diverse new ideas for how to live 

8. Our creatives are healthy, thriving and embedded in the city.

We are looking for projects that:

Engage the people of Te Whanganui-a Tara: Projects that are dynamic and open to the public, accessible and visible. They need to increase a sense of community in the city, create a sense of optimism and possibility for the city’s future through participation, and interact with the public in new ways.

Provide the unique and innovative: We’re not interested in turning cities into another copy of themselves, or one type of space or gallery. Think about your project might operate differently to what is already in existence. We want to create spaces for collisions of ideas and transformational magic moments. Our projects provide a wellspring of diverse new ideas for how to live.

Representation: We want to engage with an increasingly diverse community who are empowered by what you do. In particular we wish to increase the visibility of mana whenua and the connection between the city and the history of the land it is placed on. That means gaining strong mana whenua support and partnership to promote kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga and whaihanga. Applicants are asked to consider how their project represents these elements.

Being professional and having a clear idea: We want to provide diverse physical spaces for artists and community groups to collaborate and develop long term. Applicants should demonstrate they are ready to look after a site or hold a public space responsibly. Looking after a space open to the public develops professional skills and business practice, UDB needs to have confidence you are ready. By getting this right we ensure our creatives are healthy, thriving and embedded in the city.

Pay attention to context: Applicants should think about where their project might best be located and how it might effectively interact with its surrounding neighbourhood and its existing uses. Can your project acknowledge the history of its site and the neighbourhood it sits in? How might you contribute to caring for our whenua and our climate?

Existing Relocating Projects: Projects that involve relocating from an existing rented space in Wellington city are not eligible. We do not want to undermine existing businesses and tenancies so we have to prioritise new projects and initiatives.

Student work that is under assessment is not eligible for the UDB unless previously arranged with the academic institution.