Arts Foundation has given away $5m to artists so far

The Arts Foundation of New Zealand has recognised 10 artists at the Westpac New Zealand Arts Awards with a total of $360,000 in awards.

The  awards brings the total amount granted to artists, since the inception of the Arts Foundation in 2000, to more than $5 million.

 “This is a significant milestone," Arts Foundation executive director Simon Bowden says. "The Arts Foundation was founded with a grant of $5 million from the Lottery Grants Board. The initial grant is still invested and total equity now sits at $6.4 million.”

During the past year, the Arts Foundation received formal notice of a promised legacy estimated to be $10 million and another of $500,000. This brings total legacies notified to the Arts Foundation to just over $30 million.

Artist awards are made possible by patrons of the Arts Foundation, with recipients selected by an independent panel each year. Artists do not apply for Arts Foundation Awards and recipients are informed that they have been selected in a phone call that comes completely out of the blue.

Laureate Award recipients receiving a cash donation of $50,000 were singer-songwriter Delaney Davidson, director and choreographer Sara Brodie, kapa haka expert Wetini Mitai-Ngatai, choreographer and dancer Daniel Belton and jeweller Lisa Walker.

Sara Brodie is typical of the arts laureates with a broad career both at home and internationally. Her work spans multiple disciplines including theatre, dance, opera and interdisciplinary productions.  For Capital E National Theatre for Children, she co-wrote and directed Hear To See, which received a Chapman Trip Award for most Original Production in 2011.

She has directed numerous opera productions including Don Giovanni for New Zealand Opera, Ainadamar for the New Zealand Arts Festival, and the premiere of Jenny McLeod’s Hohepa at the New Zealand Arts Festival. 

International work has included creating Gao Shan Lui Shui – High Mountain Flowing Water with Gao Ping, Wu Na and Dong Fe and her production of Fault Lines, for the Melbourne arts Festival in 2011 has subsequently toured China, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

She is currently preparing to direct Nixon in China for the 2016 Auckland Arts Festival.

The Marti Friedlander Photographic Award of $25,000 which is presented every two years to an established photographer with a record of excellence was awarded to Rodney Charters. He has been involved in film and TV production for many years in the US and Canada. His early production Film Exercise (1966) which was probably the first film ever made at Elam, was recently shown at Te Uru.

The 2015 Mallinson Rendel Award including a cash donation of $10,000 went to book illustrator Jenny Cooper who has worked on over 70 picture books, including Rugby for Rosie, written by Frances Adlam, The Mad Tadpole Adventure by Melanie Drewery and Duck Walk by Joy Cowley.

New generation award recipients who received $25,000 were writer Anna Smaill, srtist Simon Denny and filmmaker Tusi Timothy Tamasese.  

Anna Smaill’s first novel, The Chimes, was published in 2015 and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  The book also featured on the UK Independent’s list of publishing highlights for 2015 and The Huffington Post also named her as ‘One to Watch 2015.’

She holds an MA in English literature from the University of Auckland and an MA in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington.

Her first book of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, was published by Victoria University Press in 2005, and her poems have been widely published in Sport, Landfall and the NZ Listener and were selected as Best New Zealand Poems in both 2002 and 2005.