ROLE
The Council is responsible for setting the policy and strategic direction of Creative New Zealand, allocating funds to the arts boards for investment, and undertaking initiatives. The Council is also responsible for and monitors the overall performance of Creative New Zealand and the arts boards (the Arts Board and Te Waka Toi - the Māori Arts Board).
MEMBERS
Members of the Arts Council are appointed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage for a term of up to three years. Anyone can nominate a person to be considered for appointment to the Arts Council.
Alastair Carruthers (Chair) was appointed Chair of the Arts Council in July 2007. He was previously Arts Board Chair from July 2004 and an Arts Board Member from July 2001. Alastair has been Chief Executive of the national law firm Chapman Tripp since 1999, and divides his working time between Auckland and Wellington. He is experienced in all aspects of business leadership, including strategic planning and implementation, marketing and business development, government and public relations (including arts sponsorships), human resources, technology, knowledge management and learning. He originally trained as a classical musician and is a former trustee of the New Zealand String Quartet.
Oscar Kightley is a Samoan-born writer, director and actor based in Auckland. In the early 1990s, he helped establish Christchurch theatre education company Pacific Underground, where he co-write his first play Fresh off the Boat. He is a member of the Naked Samoans comedy group and co-write the television series bro'Town. He also co-wrote and acted in the New Zealand film Sione's Wedding. In 2006, he received an inaugural Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage discretionary donation from Denis and Verna Adam.
Erima Henare (Te Aupouri, Ngati Kahu, Te Rarawa, Ngapuhi, Ngati Whatua, Tainui, Te Atiawa, Rongowhakaata, Te Aitanga a Mahaki and Tuwharetoa) has had a long association with the public service having served in senior roles in The Department of Maori Affairs and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as Deputy General Manager of the Iwi Transition Agency, and as Chief Executive Officer of the Maori Language Commission. He is currently a consultant to many organisations on strategic Maori development. As well as chairing the Maori Language Commission as the Maori Language Commissioner, Erima sits on many local, regional and national boards, committees and organisations. He is also a Personal Advisor to the Maori King.
Anne Rush is an arts and heritage advocate from Nelson. She is a former member of the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council Central Regional Committee, and is a member of the Nelson Heritage Advisory Group. She was a member of the 1999 APEC Prime Ministerial Arts and Culture Advisory Group.
James Wallace works as a lawyer in private practice in South Canterbury, where he lives on a small farm near Geraldine. James was previously a member of the QE2 Arts Council for four years before it became Creative New Zealand in 1994. He has also been involved in arts development at a local community level through arts festivals, Community Arts Councils, music, theatre and gallery groups. In recent times James has been a board member of Arts Access Aotearoa, a national organisation providing arts programmes for marginalized members of the community such as prisoners, refugees and the disabled, and Arts on Tour NZ, a performers' tour agency that helps to bring the arts to rural and remote areas of New Zealand.
Professor Judith Binney, DNZM, FRSNZ is the recipient of many academic awards, fellowships and prizes, has published extensively, and was the editor of the New Zealand Journal of History from 1996 to 2001. In 2006 she received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Non-fiction). She is Emeritus Professor of the University of Auckland and an inaugural Guardian of Alexander Turnbull Library 2003-2009. She sat on the Te Papa Board from 1999 to 2006 and was a member of the New Zealand Historic Places Board from 2007-2009. Her academic skills and bicultural experience will add considerable value to the Council.
Helen Kedgley is Senior Curator Contemporary Art at Pataka, Porirua City. A graduate of Victoria University, Massey University and the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts and Ecole du Louvre in Paris, she has wide international experience in the arts. As a painter Helen has participated in numerous exhibitions in France, England, India, and Zimbabwe. International museum work includes the Science Museum, Oxford, England and The National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Helen has curated over fifty exhibitions of Maori, Pacific Island and contemporary New Zealand art, many of which have toured nationally and internationally including Toi Maori - The Eternal Thread which toured the USA.
A member of the Board of the Wellington Sculpture Trust and the Advisory Group for the Museum and Heritage Studies Program at Victoria University, she has been invited to judge numerous art awards including the Wallace Art Awards and Headlands: Waiheke Sculpture on the Gulf 2009.