In This Together - New Zealand Arts Connections

‘In This Together - New Zealand Arts Connections’ is a New Zealand based multidisciplinary and intercultural collaborative project designed to showcase the beautiful diversity of the cultures and creative visions of musicians, visual and media artists living in Aotearoa today. 

Curated by Hanna Wiskari (Ethno NZ), Sonia Wilson (Auckland Music for Peace), Sarah Macdonald (intercultural arts consultant) and Davian Lorson (filmmaker and founder of Rooftops Media), this 6 video collaborative series will, both digitally and in-person, bring together a culturally diverse group of musicians, dancers, media and visual artists.

We hope you will join us on this colourful journey…

The Kaupapa 

The core team for our project came together through a shared desire to put our own voices, communities and skills at the service of empowering other lesser heard voices and communities around Aotearoa. 

Our wish, within the new STREAM LOCAL, FOLLOW LOCAL, BUY LOCAL New Zealand arts paradigm is to highlight our shared belief in the notion that embracing difference and variety with openness and curiosity enriches human connections and thus the quality of both our individual and shared life experiences. 

“Showcasing the real face of Aotearoa, the diverse face of Aotearoa, through musical connections has the power to open people's hearts and allow conversations to begin. So often migrant musicians are playing music for their own communities but never get the opportunity for collaborations or having their sound heard by a wider audience. Music is a wonderful way to begin to weave our collective ‘kiwi experience’ together.” (Sarah Macdonald)

Our contribution

This project will provide a platform for research and innovation by enabling collaborative creative expression and new artistic connections all around the country at a time when more traditional performance venues and projects have often largely been compromised. 

The inter-disciplinary 6 video format effectively allows us to host the variety of cultures and art forms we wish to showcase while simultaneously enabling us to do so in a geographically inclusive way by reaching out to creative collaborators all around the country instead of limiting our scope to Auckland or another big city.

For each of the six videos, one or more musical directors will facilitate the weaving of different musical elements specific to each culture to create a unified outcome. This process will be supported by the work of illustrators and other visual artists involved.

Your contribution

Monetary support will go towards helping to fund phase one, the first two videos, as detailed below:

- The first video, on the theme "Around the World in Auckland" will feature fifteen Auckland-based musicians from approximately thirteen countries (musicians currently confirmed are from Brazil, France, Fiji, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, Samoa, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden and the USA). The composition, created collaboratively by all the participants under the musical direction of multi-instrumentalist and composer Nigel Gavin and French/American singer and musician Sonia Wilson, will unfold gradually around a visual piece created specifically for this project by Japanese illustrator Hanako Clulow.

- The second video will feature and highlight a collaboration between members of the Ethno New Zealand musical community with a focus on the joy inherent within intercultural connections and communication between young artists under the age of 30 around Aotearoa. The video will be directed and facilitated by saxophonist Hanna Wiskari Griffiths and supported by other artistic leaders and team members from Ethno New Zealand; Tristan Carter, Jeremy Hantler and Tristan Hancock. They will engage participants from previous Ethno NZ editions based in different parts of the country and use repertoire from the past three years for this collaboration. To learn more about Ethno NZ please visit: www.ethnonewzealand.com

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

If you can make a contribution, we would be extremely grateful no matter the amount - every little bit helps!

As artists, we understand the importance of paying faire wages to the musicians, media and visual artists we wish to collaborate with. This is especially true now in the context of Covid19 as so many of our fellow artists around the country have recently had the plug pulled on many of their creative income sources. We are excited to share this opportunity to fund the creation of eclectic new art nationwide, which we hope will also give birth to some unforeseen ongoing collaborations.

Another way you can help is to share this campaign with your art-loving friends in New Zealand and abroad, through personalised emails or on social media. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to read this far! It’s obvious you care about the arts and we are thankful you do… A big thank you as well to the lovely team at BOOSTED who have been working so hard to support artists throughout this unprecedented time.

Merci, Tack, ありがとう

Arohanui

Sonia, Hanna, Sarah & Davian