Sustainability has become a prominent buzzword, which over the past year or so has been applied to almost every sphere of life. It has become a prominent means of promoting and selling products, from travel to fashion, with environmentalists feeling this mass appropriation violates the true intent of the term.
Arts in Action
Artist Resale Royalties
The burgeoning secondary arts market has suddenly mushroomed since Covid 19, with an increasing number of auctions turning over millions of dollars’ worth of sales. In one week alone there can be three art auctions taking place, from iconic art works by significant Aotearoa NZ artists to works accessible to new collectors. Many of the artists whose works sell well at auction, are still living and most are still practising, and the fact is that none of the funds from sales accrues to the artists whose work is being sold.
WHAT IS THE VISUAL ARTISTS RESALE ROYALTIES SCHEME?
Visual artists are entitled to a royalty payment each time an original artwork is resold on the secondary art market. The scheme is also referred to as Droit de suite (French for “right to follow”) where it originated. The scheme mirrors the royalties received by other artists, including composers and writers, when their work is reprinted or used in radio, television or film.
Artists Resale Royalties first became law in 1920 in France and to date around 80 countries have such a right. Droit de suite was created in France following the sale of Jean-Francois Millet‘s 1858 painting, the Angélus, in 1889 at the art collection sale of Eugène Secrétan, a French copper industrialist. The owner of the painting made a huge profit from this sale, whereas the family of the artist lived in poverty. Many artists, and their families, had suffered from the war, and droit de suite was a means to remedy socially difficult situations.
THE NEW ZEALAND STORY:
It is now 13 years since the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH) produced a discussion paper on Artists Resale Royalties. When first surveyed in NZ in 2007, 65% of respondents supported the plan.
Artist Resale Royalties were introduced to Parliament as the Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill in May 2008. It stated artists will receive a 5% royalty payment on sales of NZD $500 or more, each time an original artwork is commercially sold through an auction house, gallery or professional dealer. Resale royalties on artworks will be due throughout the artist’s lifetime plus 50 years after the artist’s death.[1] In March 2009, the Government Committee reported that the Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill was not passed.[2] The issue of Resale Royalties for artists eventually disappeared. Since 2007, an additional 20 countries have introduced resale royalties.
Survey for Creative Employment Programme
Image: Revolution Creative & Artslab at employment expo
SHAPING CREATIVE EMPLOYMENT IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
In May 2020, during Covid-19 Lockdown, the Government announced $7. 9 million to support creative job seekers, building on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment (PACE) programme.
At Depot Artspace we decided to develop a survey that asked creatives across all practices what they wanted from a such a programme.
Re-Framing the Future
DEPOT ARTSPACE: REFRAMING THE FUTURE
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
Covid 19 has catapulted us into the unknown. We are trying to make sense of the future and the political, economic and social landscape provides no clear or recognisable signposts. The horizon is so far indistinct and generates insecurity and trepidation. For many of us certainty is more important than possibility, even though it’s littered with the casualties of a flawed system.
SUBMISSION TO THE DEVONPORT-TAKAPUNA LOCAL BOARD PLAN 2020
A Face to the Future: Depot Artspace Perspective on the Creative Community Post Covid-19
This submission to the Local Board’s Annual Plan was prepared before Covid-19 required NZers to Lock down, leaving many community organisations and small businesses uncertain of, and in many instances fearful for their future. It has been reiterated by government and business leaders that there will be a ‘new normal’, although its form has not yet been described. However, prior to Lockdown Depot Artspace had been considering its direction with regard to the changing shape of the creative sector both internationally and locally, in all spheres of practice, employment, service delivery and audience engagement.
Our submission raises these issues as we contemplate a more relevant, responsive and subsequently viable future which is actually synchronistic with the future following the current crisis. In this submission, we address the efficacy of a local focus, built on Devonport’s rich early history, its creative whakapapa, small business infrastructure and strong sense of identity.
This full submission can be downloaded here: LOCAL BOARD Plan Submission 2020
LETTER BY JOHN MINTO
WHEN A CRISIS SIGNALS THE NEED FOR CHANGE
We have included this letter on the Arts In Action page, because we believe that alternative views by people with a long history of involvement in creating a more equitable society need to be given a platform. John Minto has a significant and respected reputation for actively and passionately working for social justice in Aotearoa.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. The world needs a new vision of what is possible, ‘that can galvanize people around the world to achieve higher levels of cooperation in areas of common concern and shared destiny.” Buckminster Fuller circa 1965
Nigel Brown. 2012 Exhibited at the Depot during the exhibition, ‘Sum of the Parts’
GROUNDHOG DAY IN THE CREATIVE SECTOR: DECADES OF ACTIVELY GOING NOWHERE
“You want a prediction about the weather?…….. It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be dark and it’s going to last you for the rest of your lives!” Phil O’Connor, in Groundhog Day, 1993
Jerry Howlett: Ascend, 2019 (diorama – mixed media)
MEASURING THE TRUE WEALTH OF OUR COUNTRY: A GENUINE PROGRESS INDICATOR FOR AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
Depot Artspace is a socially conscious creative hub. We employ the transformative capacity of the arts to engage, inspire, and challenge the community. We are guided by the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi: partnership, protection and participation.
In 2006, Depot Artspace hosted a meeting with Dr Ron Colman, world authority on progress indicators. Dr Colman is universally recognised for his work on a GPI (genuine progress indicator). He is head of GPI Atlantic, which created Nova Scotia’s Genuine Progress Index and is currently an adviser to the Royal Government of Bhutan on maximizing the country’s Gross National Happiness.
ARTS NATION AOTEAROA: DEVELOPING A CREATIVE COUNTRY
Much as I’m opposed to over-utilised, populist aphorisms there’s one that’s particularly pertinent to our previous posting on advocacy and activism. It’s ‘walking the talk’ and the piece by Jermaine Reihana is an example of this as he describes Depot Artspace exhibition Te Kuia Moko, prints of the lost paintings by Harry Sangl. Rather than continuously engage in a fruitless search for the works, Depot with the invaluable assistance of Soar Print produced prints of the originals in honour of painter Harry Sangl’s 97th birthday.
ADVOCACY AND ACTION: GRASS ROOTS ACTIVISM FOR CHANGE IN THE CREATIVE SECTOR
Peace posters workshop based on Nigel Brown’s peace painting
These days advocates outnumber activists and nowhere is this more evident than in the current creative sector. Academics, bureaucrats, politicians and other self-ascribed experts jostle for a place as harbingers of change but doing does not seem part of their change vocabulary. Hence, the wheels of progress move exceedingly slow. The plethora of reports produced over many years, decades even, about the same identified issues attest to this. As grassroots activists we advocate for a recalibration of the bureaucratic machine.
A couple of treadmills Depot Artspace finds itself returning to are creative internships and artists’ resale royalties. In both instances 12 years have ticked by since they featured on the political radar.
KEEPING PACE: WHY THE REINTRODUCTION OF PATHWAYS TO ARTS AND CULTURAL EMPLOYMENT (PACE) WILL HELP SAVE THE CREATIVE SECTOR
It’s now over a year since the Labour led government was voted in, with an agenda for the arts and culture which created a lot of optimism. At Depot Artspace we were particularly enthusiastic about the reintroduction of PACE and the initiation of creative apprenticeships/internships, especially after the drought in support for the creative sector over the previous decade.
Depot has offered PACE since early 2002, although in 2010 we were unable to apply the acronym to our programme, changing the name to ArtsLab. Before that, we ran our own creative industries mentoring scheme for 3 years, funded by J. R. McKenzie Trust (Arts Incubator Mentoring Scheme, AIMS) for which we won a Civic Award.
STATE OF THE ARTS: CHANGES IN THE ART WORLD 2018
The Depot has been in the art world for twenty-one years now and continues to remain sustainable by being perspicacious, predictive and proactive. We have been researching the changes in the art world.
STATE OF THE ARTS
We first discussed the state of the arts in 2003. We explored the notion that an increasing preoccupation with fiscal matters led to the commodification of almost everything; that our society was one where, as Oscar Wilde famously observed, “everything has a price and nothing has value.” Included now in this commodified world, with its concomitant characteristics, including conspicuous consumption and investment potential, are the arts.
We noted that the shameful sale of Colin McCahon’s “Storm Warning” in 1998 by Victoria University to a private collection presaged in both the act and the substance of the work some of these major social trends, which finally filtered into the NZ art scene. McCahon bequeathed the work with the expectation it would remain on public display. The text of “Storm Warning” prophetically read:
‘YOU MUST FACE THE FACT The final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men will love nothing but money and self. They will be arrogant, boastful and abusive, with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affections, they will be implacable in their hatreds. PAUL TO TIMOTHY.’
Storm Warning, Colin McCahon 1980 synthetic polymer paint, unstretched canvas
DEAR BARACK OBAMA: A LESSON FOR LEADERS
When Barack Obama took office he committed to reading 10 letters a day from the 10,000 he received daily from the American people, becoming the first president to put such a deliberate focus on constituent correspondence. ‘Late each afternoon, around five o’clock, a selection would be sent up from the post room to the Oval Office. The “10 LADs”, as they came to be known – for “10 letters a day” – would circulate among senior staff and the stack would be added to the back of the briefing book the president took with him to the residence each night. He answered some by hand and wrote notes on others for the writing team to answer, and on some he scribbled “save”.’
Grassroots and Change
Kuini Karanui speaks at the Turangawaewae: Sense of Place exhibition at Depot Artspace
‘Grassroots’ is defined as ‘community-engaged’; grassroots are the people in and of a community, as contrasted with those at the top, ‘the leadership or elite of a private or government organisation.’
Depot Artspace is proudly grass roots. From this point it keeps an ear to the ground, the place where people stand – their turangawaewae – and from which, if nurtured, things grow and are sustained.
Over nearly more than two decades, the Depot has developed facilities, services and new initiatives that respond to the needs and interests of the creative community, both local and beyond. These include: galleries; recording and rehearsal studios; ArtsLab, the biggest professional development programme for artists nationally; creative internships research and development; Cultural Icons, a filmed interview series (78 interviews so far) with people who have been significant in the cultural landscape; Depot Press, including ‘The Vernacularist’ journal, W’akaputanga, Turangawaewae/Sense of Place and LOUD magazine.
GRASS ROOTS ARTS: VISION, RESOURCEFULNESS AND RESILIENCE
Arts and culture have taken a bad beating across the country this year. The following is a litany of losses, both imminent and already undertaken:
- The closure of the Elam Arts School and School of Architecture Libraries
- The dire under-funding of Auckland Art Gallery resulting in threats of closure or charging entry fees
- The cutting of Te Papa collections staff
- The closure of a number of regional galleries including Manawa, Rotorua Museum and Southland Museum and Art Gallery
- The threatened cutting of an art history course at Southland Institute of Technology
- The downsizing of NZ’s biggest architectural firm Jasmax, with significant staff cuts
The Photographer as Nature’s Friend
It’s no secret that our native flora and fauna are under threat of extinction. From the kauri to the dotterel the extent of loss to Aotearoa of living taonga is heart breaking.
A report produced in 2017 by the Ministry for the Environment documents the profound effects on the bird life of Aotearoa and in doing so offers up a challenge to reverse this potential devastation.
Vision and values in Auckland’s urban design: Shaping a liveable city
Arts in Action envisions a society enriched by the values that influence decision making across all disciplines and forms of practice.
Creative thinking is at the nub of social change because it offers alternative ways of viewing what is often regarded as fixed and non-negotiable, being attached to a dominant ideology.
Richard Reid is a visionary architect whose values inform and shape his work. When he returned to Aotearoa in 1997 he added a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture to his degree in Architecture in order to understand and integrate into his practice the natural and social environments of Aotearoa. He established his own practice in 2001 and continues to actively contribute to community and environmental groups, in particular the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society (2003-07) and Ngataringa Bay Society (2007-2011).
Life, Art and Community: A Sunday with Auckland City Mission artists at Depot Artspace
The Depot Artspace ethos embraces the arts community in all its aspects and attributes. The arts have a universal voice with which all are able to speak. This month we have been honoured to host the artists of the Auckland City Mission whose works are showcasing at the Depot Gallery in their second exhibition.
Clare Caldwell, Visual arts Tutor with the Mission, spent Sunday at the Depot Gallery along with the exhibiting artists, enjoying kōrero (conversation) with interested visitors, and sharing their hearty lunch.
Art and Aroha: Building change through creative communities
On June 23 the Depot proudly hosted the opening of two exhibitions, each in its own way outstanding, moving and memorable, and together embodying the values the Depot aspires to represent in its own ethos and daily work…Read More…
Arts in Action: The transformative power of creative leadership
Inspiring creative leadership has the capacity to transform a workplace, a community, a region or a country. The creative mind can provide new insight into ongoing issues that are continually plied with the same unsuccessful solutions. A few inspirational leaders have shown the significant difference that innovative solutions are able to make and Depot Artspace has been fortunate to take part in their initiatives.
“I have wanted to meet Jason Smith from 2011, the time I encountered his work as Senior Policy Advisor for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage where he produced a cultural map of Auckland which was initially displayed on the Auckland Council website.” Read More…
Walking, one sense at a time #smell
Our latest addition to Arts in Action is a piece by Iryna Zamuruieva that we received from our call out for submissions. Iryna is an artist, arts activist, researcher and project manager, who has developed an urban walking experience project for the CBD neighbourhood. She has designed a series of walks that will encourage the participants to re-experience city in a playful way. Her first sense-walk took place on Saturday 2 June in the Auckland CBD.
“I would like to believe there is another way – a deeply attentive one, the one where the smells are sniffed, sounds heard, textures touched, and tastes are tasted. Walking this way transforms the city space from a transit zone where a route may be just a way from one destination to the other, into a place where a different kind of experience is co-created, different kind of relationships with material or abstract things are made and maybe even curious questions about the things are emerge“…read more…
Photo credit: Iryna Zamuruieva
Standing the test of time and integrity: PACE/ArtsLab
Well-known and widely quoted politicians are often haunted by a past of broken promises which competing parties and mischievous reporters are wont to exploit. George Bush’ famous “watch my lip…no new taxes” is such an example, never to be forgotten or lived down.
If there’s someone who can’t be faulted when it comes to standing by their commitment, especially in the creative sector which is often under-represented and overlooked, it’s Helen Clark….Read More…
Photo credit: Fairfax Media https://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/the-9th-floor/story/201842639/the-commander-helen-clark
Missing the Mark: The choice of locations for sculptures honouring women’s suffrage in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This year, 2018, marks the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand.
While Council is honouring this significant event, we are bemused by their omission of Devonport as a site for a commemorative sculpture since Devonport has been recorded as the first place women voted in Aotearoa, and from 2013 local women have been advocating for a sculpture here. Read More…
He Oranga Pumau: The campaign for Rongoa Māori (Māori Health Practice) in the health system
On Saturday (6.5.18) I was privileged to attend, in the packed Rawene Town Hall, the premiere of He Oranga Pumau, a film which launched the movement for a significant change in the existing health services, one which would recognise and give equal status to Rongoa Māori, Māori healing practices. Read more…
The continuing Auckland University Library debacle: Why it’s such an important debate
Since the shocking announcement last month that Auckland University was about to burn books in its specialist libraries there has been a deluge of collective opprobrium at what amounts to an outrageous attack on democratic values and represents the zenith of philistinism.
Professor Stuart McCutcheon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland, infers that the objections are misguided, unnecessarily disputatious and tantamount to hysteria in his recent response to the issue in the NZ Herald, April 30, 2018. Read more…
Greer Twiss centre, Peter Siddell and Richard Killeen. Photographer Gil Hanly
Reflections on the implications of size: Pt 1 Small is Beautiful
Why is small beautiful when everything promoted as powerful, spectacular and worthy of respect in society – motor vehicles, buildings, personal appendages, bank balances – seems to mock the statement? Super yachts, super powers and, more lately, super cities all proclaim the glory of size. Read More…
Save the Arts, Our Last Bastion of Freedom
The Depot has a sibling arts centre in Rawene, comprising gallery, café and bookstore, Erewhon Secondhand Quality Books. We travel between places as often as time allows, to pick up and drop off artwork as part of a creative exchange, and to restock the bookshelves.
Eating Big Fish
In the giant ocean small fish swim more safely in schools. There is no desire amongst them to draw attention to their presence as personalities; it would more than likely mean danger, the possibility of being picked off by creatures larger and more predisposed to mischief.
Better to live in a less self-interested manner; in making sure that survival for everyone, not just a privileged few, is easy. Standing out is not an issue for small fish. Read More…
Liberation Arts and its place in Peace Making
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 – 1964)
Being nuclear free is a defining component of New Zealand identity, celebrated by cities across the country who have adopted peace city status. What a fantastic characteristic to know ourselves, and for the world to know us by!
It is a bold declaration for cities to make because commitment is necessary to bear the fruits of peace. Commemoration is great, and reflection also, but action is essential. Read more…
Liberation Arts and the Creative Revolution
“The essence of a revolution is the direct intervention of the masses in the political life of the nation. It represents a radical break with the normal routine of existence, where the masses leave the key decisions affecting their lives in the hands of the powers that be. Such a break only occurs at a point when the majority draws the conclusion that the existing order is incompatible with their very existence. A revolution is a situation where the masses take their destiny into their own hands.”
Alan Woods and Jorge Martin in “Revolution in Bolivia” 2005
Revolutions are usually messy things and in a ‘civilised’ society not the sort of activity one wants to be involved in, unless it’s a sanitized misrepresentation of the term in which technology or some other corporate phenomenon is promoted as a mass movement that changes our lives.
But this has little to do with being driven by the masses; usually the masses are further manipulated into believing that they are the major beneficiaries of whatever has been sold to them. Read more…
A Small Word
Art – such a small word; unprepossessing, uninspiring even. If you repeat it over and over, it sounds like nothing more than stone in a rotating tyre. There is nothing in its form or sound that supplies it with the gravitas that is its just due.
Yet, like 2 words of similar form and substance, I am, it may be compared to a stellar phenomenon, a ‘white dwarf’. White dwarfs are very small and thus very hard to detect, yet they are very dense, their mass comparable to that of the Sun, while their volume is comparable to that of the Earth.
Art – it’s packed tight with myriad forms which in themselves bear a depth and breadth of meaning and emotion that totally belie its evident size.
That’s why art matters; art, the medium by which human consciousness is free to express or embody itself, is therefore predisposed to constant discovery; its vastness is without horizon and it cannot be constrained by social constructs or ideologies which include notions such as time, dualism and the universe.
In this sense the arts are one of the defining factors of an enlightened civilisation and it is in this sense also that the arts are the antidote for the world’s spiritual poisons. They may have succumbed in some hands to commodification and conspicuous consumption, but in large they remain true to their business of teaching, inspiring and opening fettered minds. Art can change hearts and minds, which is why civilisations are celebrated for their continuing cultural legacy.
Art – because it appears small and innocuous, art endures in its subversiveness and in its capacity for liberation.
– by Linda Blincko (Creative Director)
Arts In Action: Various Peregrinations
This essay by Linda Blincko explores the various dimensions of the Arts in Action.
“At the most fundamental level creating is a natural attribute of living beings. It is continuously in motion, limitless in its permutations and infinite in its possibilities.
That is why, when Depot Artspace took over the old Borough Council works depot twenty two years ago, we began what continues to be a work in progress.” Read more…
LOUD #71: Arts in Action – Now Available Online!
LOUD #71 Arts in Action is now available to read online. Featuring news, articles and interviews from the whole Depot Artspace team, this issue explores the many manifestations of the Arts in action!
You can also pick up a hard copy from the Main Gallery front desk.
Kerr St Artspace
Depot Galleries
Depot Sound
Research and Innovation
Wayfind Creative
Cultural Icons
Arts in Action