Wild Creations artist residencies applications ope

MEDIA RELEASE
To:Chief Reporter/ Arts Reporter/ Conservation Reporter

Date: May 30, 2006

Wild Creations artist residencies applications open

Artists from around New Zealand have the chance to go wild in 2007. Applications are now being taken for the 2007 Wild Creations artist residency programme, and artists have until August 31 to submit their applications.

Creative New Zealand and the Department of Conservation have been working in partnership to encourage links between conservation and the arts, and this is the fifth year that the Wild Creations programme has been offered.

“Wild Creations residencies are a unique opportunity for artists to really focus on their art in some of the most beautiful areas in New Zealand,” says the Department of Conservation’s Wild Creations Coordinator Anastasia Turnbull.

Creative New Zealand Chief Executive Elizabeth Kerr says there has been a high level of interest since the residencies were introduced.

“The residencies have captured people’s imaginations and reflect the way in which New Zealand artists are inspired by our natural landscapes and history,” Miss Kerr said. “We have been consistently impressed by the calibre and originality of the work produced by the Wild Creations partnership.”

The six-week residencies are open to practising artists in any artform or cultural tradition, and are chosen from one of over 20 significant conservation sites throughout New Zealand. The Department of Conservation hosts the artists during their residencies and Creative New Zealand provides a stipend of $5000, plus up to $2000 for travel and materials, to each artist. Artists selected for the residencies must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents.

Audio artist and composer Alison Isadora spent five weeks in Bannockburn, Central Otago, as one of last year’s Wild Creations recipients.

“The residency was an inspiring time which has resulted already in various works and the potential is in no way exhausted,” she says. “Many interesting questions were raised for me concerning our relationships with particular landscapes, with different cultures and with different times in history.”

2006’s Wild Creations recipients were Auckland photographer Monique Jansen, who will be going to Aoraki Mt Cook; Christchurch video artist Naomi Lamb, who chose to take up her residency in Karamea; and Auckland photographer Darren Glass, who will be going to Tongariro National Park later this year.

For more information about the residencies, artists should contact Anastasia Turnbull at the Department of Conservation (04 471 3182 or aturnbull@doc.govt.nz) or Helaina Keeley at Creative New Zealand (04 498 0702) helainak@creativenz.govt.nz. Site information and application packs are also available through the Department of Conservation’s website – www.doc.govt.nz.

ENDS

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