Activity Highlights 

Stop the Cuts

We launched the StopTheCuts campaign and partnered with other key sector stakeholders to rally community advocacy in opposition to the proposed Auckland Council budget cuts (see more below). As part of this campaign, we also made our own written and oral submissions to Council. 

Ngā Toi Advocacy Network

Across 2020-23, we convened Ngā Toi Advocacy Network as an online forum for the sector to connect, share learning and strategise shared priorities for advocacy.

One day session with Asian diaspora artists in Aotearoa, June 2023.

Arts Action Now

In the run-up to the 2023 general election we established Arts Action Now !!! to support the sector in positioning arts, culture and creativity as a key issue, advocating for national strategy and policy. More recently, this website has pivoted to be an advocacy rallying point for artists and creatives across Aotearoa.

Advocacy for systems change

As part of our ongoing efforts to influence wider systems change in relation to policy and resourcing, we: 

•  Produced a think piece for the Auckland Arts Investors’ Forum outlining a vision of the sector’s future state, and key opportunities for systems change. This was influential in the Forum collaborating to develop an evolved ngā toi Māori investment prototype (currently under design). 

• Commissioned Enter the Multiverse to understand the needs and aspirations of the Asian diaspora arts community in Tāmaki Makaurau, which directly influenced the priorities of Creative NZ and Foundation North’s Asian Artists’ Fund. 

• Through our co-convening of the Auckland Investors’ Forum we sought to influence collaborative responses to systemic issues with funding equity and accessibility, informed by our third publication of the report: Mapping the Auckland Funding Ecosystem for Ngā Toi – Culture, Creativity and the Arts.

To read more about our past advocacy work, see this report.