Our work | Cultural diversity
Creative New Zealand’s purpose is “to encourage, promote and support the arts in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders”. Guided by our Strategic Plan Te Mahere Rautaki 2007-2010 and acknowledging the unique place of Māori as tangata whenua, we work to ensure the arts of ethnic communities in New Zealand are recognised and developed.
- Following on from the Asian Aucklanders and the Arts research, a Spotlight on Diversity programme has been developed to build culturally diverse audiences by engaging pan –Asian Arts Ambassadors. These Arts Ambassadors will work as community networkers to develop new Asian audiences; people-to-people marketing as opposed to print-to-people marketing.
- The Cultural Diversity Strategy is a beginning, an attempt to open the door and to hold Creative New Zealand to account for those three words in its vision statement: "all New Zealanders", said Arts Council member Dr Peter Brunt at the New Zealand Diversity Forum.
- Creative New Zealand, Auckland City Council and the ASB Community Trust continue to work in partnership to develop a five-year Asian Aucklanders' Strategic Action Framework, following research conducted in late 2006 and published in May 2007.
- The 2007 ASB PolyFest, held in March, showcased Auckland's diverse cultures and involved more than 8500 performers celebrating music, dance and art.
- In its broadest sense, culture is defined by the shared customs, values, norms, language, behaviour and beliefs, which are characteristic of a particular group of people. Culture hinges on these characteristics being transmitted across generations. Culture can attribute meaning to life, writes Kelcy Taratoa in a paper presented to the New Zealand Diversity Forum.
- "Self and identity for me is a journey full of potholes of reflections, straight roads of contentment and windy roads of learning and growing and change," writes dancer Cathy Livermore in the paper she presented at the New Zealand Diversity Forum.
