Auckland City Council sought our help when they wanted to take a comprehensive look at their public art activities and their role in supporting, commissioning and legislating for public art in Auckland. We were asked to provide advice on council policy, processes, funding and organisational structure. Council was seeking improvements that would better align their public art programme with best practice and their vision for Auckland city.

Auckland City Council faced a number of challenges:

• Public art activity had grown significantly
• There were increasing demands and opportunities for public art
• The changed environment had highlighted the need for a more strategic and integrated approach to planning and delivery of public art projects
• Capacity and the level of resources required to manage public art effectively were stretched

Our work included in-depth arts sector and stakeholder consultations (through interviews, artist forums and advisory groups), best practice research, baseline data gathering and analysis, and the identification of issues and solutions. The project drew on our long experience in the visual arts, our expertise in leading and managing complex art projects, our ability to translate across different values and language cultures (for instance between the art world and the regulatory environment of council), our strategic thinking, and our ability to understand the complexities of political and community stakeholder environments.

The review was completed in 2008 and council asked for our continued assistance with planning the implementation of the new structures. During this phase our work included preparing work-in-progress background reports; writing policy and management guidelines; undertaking further research on suitable funding models; assisting with recruitment; and advising on site-selection and artist-selection for ongoing public art projects.

Art in public places: Auckland City Council’s public art policy was released in August 2008.

Enquire here for more information…