Toi Ōtautahi Christchurch Arts

Christchurch City Council is committed to achieving an enlivened and creative city, where the arts are recognised as being essential to cultural and social well-being.

Toi Ōtautahi – Strategy for the Arts and Creativity in Ōtautahi Christchurch 2019–2024 [PDF, 959 KB] aims to support the development of local artists, generate new opportunities for employment and artistic expression and participation, as well as improving the quality of the built environment through public arts.

Arts advisors are available to provide advice and assistance to artists, arts organisations and the wider community, and are interested in fostering partnerships and collaborative projects.

Council provides a range of funding mechanisms to support arts and cultural projects, creative organisations and businesses, including: 

• Creative Communities Scheme (managed on behalf of Creative New Zealand )
• Strengthening Communities Fund
• Creative Industries Support Fund
• Transitional City Projects Fund
• Events and Festivals Fund

The Council is committed to local Māori arts practice and language development.

Māori arts celebrate our unique past and are making an invaluable contribution to the city’s rebuild. Council has legislated responsibilities to Māori which includes ensuring there are opportunities for Māori to participate in public life.

Promoting and developing traditional and contemporary Māori arts practices and language in Ōtautahi Christchurch is an important component of this and is given effect through Council’s Arts Policy and Strategy.

Arts and culture have a major role to play in the rebuild and revitalisation of our city.

Creative life is being brought back to the central city with a number of anchor projects in the central city that will draw on the rich natural and cultural heritage of the city, and provide Christchurch with world-class facilities, including:

• Christchurch Art Gallery
• Christchurch Town Hall
• Performing Arts Precinct
• Central Library

Funding opportunities

Have your say on the Long Term Plan for Ōtautahi

Have you made a submission to the Christchurch City Council’s Long Term Plan 2021-31(external link)? Submissions are being accepted until 18 April.

This is your opportunity to shape what happens in our city over the next decade.

What you need to know about funding

• The Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH)(external link) has a number of funds open, or due to open, that support a range of practitioners and organisations currently.
• Take a look at their CARE funding package if you are an organisation running a creative space that caters for those who experience barriers to participation.
• For hapū, iwi and Māori cultural organisations and practitioners there is a range of opportunities currently available through the MCH also. 
• Creative New Zealand(external link) is still offering funding through arts grants and other programmes to support individual practitioners and organisations.
• We do recommend meeting with one of our fund advisors before making large applications in particular. Get in touch with us at artsadvisors@ccc.govt.nz

Playing for laughs

Ōtautahi has a long history of comedy – from the first television broadcasts of McPhail and Gadsby’s ‘A Week of It’ right up to the current crop of stand-up comedians – the city has always enjoyed a good laugh.

Despite this, it might surprise you to learn there are just two full-time comedy clubs in Aotearoa, one in Auckland and now one in Christchurch.

The Good Times Comedy Club, is the brainchild of local stand-up comedian, Snap. In what will be a familiar story for many creatives, he had great expectations when he originally opened the club in January last year, but then Covid-19 hit.

“I had to hustle,” says Snap. “We had to do a crowdfunding campaign originally to get the club going and then once Covid hit we had to find investors to get it back up and running but luckily there are a lot of people who are really supportive of what we’re doing and the comedy industry in Ōtautahi is pretty significant now and it all fell together.”

Like many in the arts sector, the pandemic has hit Snap hard, but he believes local audiences are supportive of the stand-up scene and will venture out to see local comedians.

“Stand up audiences are huge nowadays. It’s really a mainstream thing now and it’s continuing to grow rapidly. Most people will know the name of a stand up comedian these days thanks to things like Netflix, so much of its content is stand up now. I don’t think stand up has ever really been on the fringe, but it is really growing all the time.”

Snap entered the world of stand up after a high school teacher suggested he try it. It took him several years to gain the nerve to do it, but once he got onstage, he realised he’d found his passion. While he loves being on stage himself, these days he’s just as passionate about helping other comedians into the business.

“I’m so impressed by the quality of material here. We have some really diverse voices. I think we have some of the best talent in New Zealand,” he explains. “We have always traditionally created a lot of comics in Ōtautahi who have gone on to success - Rhys Darby is one of our biggest comedians and he’s from here– and right now there is a huge team of comics in the city, and so much potential for some of our comics to be massive on the stand up circuit.”

Helping to keep our local comedians in the city is another driving factor behind Good Times, and Snap has big plans in the wings.

“One of the major things we’re doing is that we will be launching a streaming platform this year and given the way the world is going, this may be the future of the business rather than relying on bricks and mortar,” he says. “If we can effectively create a platform for Ōtautahi comics then there is no need for us to risk losing our talent to Auckland. If we can create sustainable careers right here then we can keep our own talent here.”

And there are good reasons for young comedians to build their careers in Christchurch. Snap believes choosing to base himself in the city was crucial to his own career.

“There’s so much I love about this city on a personal level, but as a comedian, this city gives opportunities like no other,” he explains. “There’s no way I could have developed my career in the way I have if I lived in any other city in New Zealand. There’s been space to grow and develop because of the amount of stage time I got and how quickly I was able to become professional - that just wouldn’t have happened in another city.”

Launched at the end of 2019 after extensive consultation with arts communities across the city, Toi Ōtautahi A Strategy for Arts and Creativity in Ōtautahi Christchurch sets out four Pou Arahi: Key Themes for Development and Ngā Hohenga: Strategic Action Areas that will move us towards the desired outcomes of each of the strategic pillars.

Crucially, Toi Ōtautahi creates—for the first time since 2001—a framework for the development of arts policy, funding, and activity at a local government level.

It will take time for this strategy to become embedded within operations, and at this point, implementation requires a deeper understanding of the sector.

One of the key strategic areas is resourcing; ensuring transparency and clarity of processes for accessing funds and resources so that the arts and artists thrive.

In response to this, the Council Arts team developed a survey to map and identify city-wide creative economic activity which went live in December 2020. This survey was designed to give a snapshot for Ōtautahi, to follow on from Creative New Zealand’s national survey of artists (1447 respondents) in 2019.

Our survey received 337 responses and helps give a broader picture of what’s happening in our arts sector. It’s clear from both surveys that creative practitioners are, on the whole, struggling to make a living. 

59% of Christchurch respondents said they were unable to make a living off their art. This is less than the national average of 77% of artists who reported not being able to live off their work.

Unfortunately, this is not a surprising result. Artbeat reported on the results of the CNZ survey last year, and in response Creative New Zealand released guidelines around payment for creatives, recommending a $25 per hour minimum for creative work in any funding applications.

Concerns around the ongoing effects of COVID-19 were strongly reflected in our survey with over 40% of respondents reporting decreased turnover throughout 2020. Meanwhile, over 50% stated their creative businesses suffered during the COVID-19 lockdowns, compared to 13% who experienced a positive impact.

More promising results showed a renewed focus on local and regional markets with 65% of respondents working and producing work for these audiences.

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage is also due to launch their Creative Arts Recovery and Employment Fund in the coming month, which aims to stimulate arts activity in underserved areas. In terms of opportunities, larger arts organisations are embracing local and national programming with increasingly homegrown line-ups.

When asked which areas of their career they required help with, respondents identified marketing and advice on grant and funding applications as being two areas of concern. This is indicative of a lack of accessible and relevant professional development opportunities post-tertiary study and is something that the government’s recent announcement concerning the reintroduction of a Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme (now called Careers Support for Creative Practitioners) seeks to address.

Pilot programmes are currently being rolled out in Auckland, Waikato, and Nelson. This is also an area that the Council Arts team is investigating, with planned hui and workshops for artists and arts organisations to improve their knowledge around professional practices.

As we work to implement Toi Ōtautahi there are ongoing opportunities to contribute to this discussion, including the Christchurch City Council’s draft Long Term Plan(external link) which is now available to read and submit feedback on and we encourage you to submit a response.

To attend, please register your interest with artsadvisors@ccc.govt.nz. This address can also be used if you have any questions about the Long Term Plan and how to submit feedback.

We would like to thank all of those who responded to our survey – your contributions are invaluable for our continued arts planning.

Articles and interviews in local and national media throughout March that have featured Ōtautahi's art industry:

• Coralie Winn’s (Co-founder of Gap Filler) editorial in Stuff (external link)advocates for more recognition of the importance of creativity and the role creative people can and should play in city-making. 
• How important is concrete to the iconic Town Hall? Jessica Halliday in (external link)The Spinoff(external link) finds out the extent in her informative piece.
• Charlie Gates' article(external link) on Stuff takes a look at the CSO’s Tumuhana.
• Pianist Rachel Fuller spoke to Upbeat (external link)on Concert FM about her love for working with other musicians (mainly singers), and why the term ‘accompanying’ doesn’t adequately describe what a collaborative pianist does.
• Charlie Gates reveals the ‘mystery’ artist(external link) behind a tribute piece to the victims of the March 15 terror attack has been revealed as Silivalio Fasi.
• Philip Norman and Christchurch Symphony Orchestra CEO Gretchen La Roche talked to Upbeat(external link) about a new composition and the CSO’s adaptability and connection with the community during this difficult decade.
• Tony Stamp reviews(external link) a new EP by Christchurch husband and wife duo, Terrible Sons.
• Prominent art historian and writer Avenal McKinnon is remembered in an obituary on Stuff.(external link)