By Mark Amery
What happens when you fund 10 artists a part time wage – a universal basic income – for an entire year, to help facilitate change within their community across an entire region?
Over 2022 and 2023 arts agency Creative Waikato trialled such a project. Whiria Te Tāngata was given $630,000 from the Manatū Taonga Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s Innovating Aotearoa fund.
A documentary exploring a region’s worth of wellbeing by Dan Inglis premieres in Kirikiriroa Hamilton on Monday night and Whiria te Tāngata has also been the subject of a positive Social Impact Report by Australian specialist consultants Huber Social.
“When people are heard and seen, their attitudes to everything changes, and I mean everything,” says project lead Leafā Wilson in the documentary.
“I would be so bold as to say that Whiria te Tāngata is more than just artists working in community, I think it’s a model for rehabilitation of the whole of society.”
The country’s first multi-community artists in residency scheme, Whiria Te Tāngata paired its 10 artists with mentors whom they met monthly.
Those artists ranged from playwrights and puppeteers to visual artists and musicians working in truly diverse communities. They ranged from Port Waikato to Coromandel Town and Tokoroa to Huntly.
They were also brought together with a raft of mentors nationally, and Wilson was responsible for visiting them and their communities and buddying them up with mentors.
It’s a role she equates with being “an aunty”.
Waikato-born and raised, Wilson has herself been making, curating or writing about art for over 40 years.
She was previously, for 17 years, curator of art at Waikato Museum.
She spoke with Mark Amery from RNZ’s Culture 101 to share some of the powerful artist and community stories that made up the project.
