Creative Views – Groundswell Festival
Red Square Tauranga CBD
Creative Views background
During 2017 – 2018, CBOP worked with local creatives to display their work, free of charge, in our Willow Street front window. The initiative was well-received by the general public, who stopped in their tracks to see the fortnightly new installations, and even more so by creatives, who booked out this window by 8 months in advance, reflecting the high demand for creative spaces for display.
The window provided a platform to profile, raise awareness and promote creatives works or upcoming events or exhibitions which were being held by organisations. We were delighted with the variety and thoughtful curation of the displays that went in.
In moving to The Kollective we have really missed our window, so CBOP has been actively pursuing opportunities to continue this initiative. Based on initiatives seen in other communities such as Gap Filler in Christchurch and The Urban Dream Brokerage in Wellington, we hope to continue working with our grassroots artists and creatives to activate vacant city spaces, to bring back the joy of discovery into our city centre.
Creative Views and our city:
The ‘Creative Views’ window installation in the Red Square is a ‘pilot’ to showcase what can be achieved through fresh collaborations. The idea is a simple win-win scenario. The vacant space is re-imaged and showcased while providing a platform for our creative community and hopefully, increasing our civic pride while our city is undergoing some growing pains.
CBOP has been in discussion with Downtown Tauranga, Tauranga City Council and local creatives, with the desire to continue the pilot project. We hope to bring local business sponsors and space owners on board to see this project continue. There are endless possibilities with regards to art installations, message and storytelling, collaborations, workshops and pop-ups, the list goes on. This project supports the vision for a more vibrant city in our arts and culture strategy, Toi Moana.
Red Square was chosen for the simple fact that we had a willing landlord (of which we are very appreciative!) and a prominent city space during the Groundswell period.
We had a very limited budget and turn-around time to bring this window from concept to fruition.
We have seen iterations of this idea previously, with Toi Ohomai students activating a vacant city space through ‘The Project Room’, and hope to work with the student cohort moving forward.
The Installations: Focus on storytelling
BOP Film is one of the installations using the opportunity to promote their organisation and the upcoming International Youth Silent Film Festival (IYSFF) which is being held at Baycourt on the 8 – 9 November. The Spaceship in the window is a prop that was built by Ramma Construction and the Alien created by Sandi Cutts for a youth workshop held by BOP Film in the schools holidays preparing youths for their entry into the IYSFF. The film playing on the screen in the window is one of Films from 2018.
Find out more about the International Youth Silent Film Festival
Watch the ‘Light Years From Home’ workshop film
The other installation is called The “Evolution of Violence” and is the winning submission by Maria Kausalainen for the 2019 SociaLink “Legacy Trust ‘Art With Purpose’ Award” unveiled earlier this month at SociaLinks Research Launch.
CBOP worked alongside SociaLink to demonstrate how we can articulate challenging social issues through creative expression. Further information can be found here on the project and the artists interpretation of the research themes.
We are extremely grateful to those businesses who helped make this project possible. A big thank you has to go to the landlord of the building for letting us utilise the space, Acrow Scaffolding for building the stage, Computer Style Signs for their expert signage knowledge and service, Baycourt, Film BOP, Legacy Trust, SociaLink and Maria Kausalainen. These organisations donated their time and resources to bring this window to life.
Interaction & learnings:
At this stage, this window display is static. We encourage people to view it at night when it comes to life with the lighting. We have had some difficulties with the window reflections, and certainly, have some learnings for the installations moving forward.
We encourage you to go down and have a look at the window yourself.
If you are business interested in sponsoring and being part of ‘Creative Views’ please contact us
If you are creative or creative organisation and would like to be involved in future ‘Creative Views’ please register your interest by contacting us
