Uplift our
community
wairua
A shared framework that helps community enablers achieve broader impact and focus on community benefit, with a vision and strategy to support and strengthen arts, culture and creativity in the region.
We present the Waikato Arts Navigator.
A framework and community-led strategy, that is designed to be utilised, implemented and activated by all people who choose to identify as being part of the arts ecosystem.
This means artists, arts organisations, advocates, audiences, and communities – alongside enablers like councils, government, funders, and other interested parties who want to celebrate the role of arts, culture and creativity in the Waikato region.
The WAN is a mechanism to help achieve broader impact. It is a shared language, a way to understand and communicate the value of what we do, and to find ways to work with one another to enhance the role of arts, culture and creativity in the region.
By proactively valuing, and supporting the arts, culture and creative sector we can add value and enhance the well-being of our people. Let’s collectively uplift our community wairua through the power of the arts to make a transformational shift for all people in the Waikato region.
Find out how you can explore the Waikato Arts Navigator below, or reach out to us for a chat and we can support you in making the WAN support the mahi that you already do.
Artists
Utilise this thinking and strategic framework within your project plans and funding applications so that you can share the stories of the impact of your work. How does it connect with your community? How can you understand your work as connecting with a community, connecting with an audience? What is the impact that your work might have on the people that it connects with?
Arts Organisations
Similar to the above, utilising the framework as part of your funding applications, utilising it to guide your project design and implementation. We can view investment in the arts, as an investment in people. We utilise arts, culture and creativity as the methodology to enhance the holistic wellbeing of our people. Use this understanding and key threads as part of your advocacy around the impact of your work for your communities. If we are all contributing to one of these core threads, we can make a collective difference in the region.
Councils
Utilise the WAN framework to design your own short and long-term action plan. Celebrate the strengths of your community and work with activators in your local areas to partner with them to enable more activity. Alongside the allocation of funding, this can be removing barriers for access, supporting the utilisation of spaces and places, and working to embed arts, culture and creativity advisors (and community consultation) in all facets of council work. There is real strength to be gained from across the societal ecosystem through utilising this thinking in a holistic sense. Creative Waikato can support in making these connections and framing this work within the needs, strengths and possibilities of your community.
Funders and Enablers
The WAN framework can help to define and explore possibilities for impact through arts, culture and creativity within your organisational work, and your funding approaches. We know the impact that is possible through arts-informed thinking early in any process. There is potential to think about the way we tell and celebrate local stories, to embed vibrancy into communities, to encourage new ways of thinking and inspiring conversations. This is from a holistic view of wellbeing, and exploring the possibilities of an integrated and intertwined development process.
Want more info?
If you have any questions about how this might fit into what you are doing and how you might want to embed arts, culture and creativity in your life, workplace, community or beyond please get in touch.