Artwork² is an Auckland-based advocacy-group which has been promoting arts and cultural projects as a strategy for bringing local communities alive and creating local jobs.

Artwork² is a collective of community-development workers, artists and arts administrators who believe that community-based arts projects lead to cultural and economic development which later surfaces as employment in practical arts, music, entertainment, tourism and hospitality.

The group is keen to publicise the stories of various community arts projects which are doing just this ... in the hope that these stories will inspire other communities around NZ to follow in their footsteps. Artwork² has produced a brochure which promotes four community arts projects as living examples of the `potential' within this approach to employment and community development. The projects they feature include:

The Mural project at Katikati -- where the bare walls of town buildings are being transformed by local artists in a project to re-invent Katikati as the `mural centre of NZ'. The mural project employs the artists who are drawing on the local Maori and settler heritage for their themes, and there are local guides who will explain the stories behind the pictures. Katikati shop-keepers record an increase in tourism with thriving craft, gift and coffee shops to attract visitors.

The waderbirds community theatre project at Manukau -- a participatory theatre event with an international environmental theme aimed at preserving the Manukau wetlands. The Far Eastern Curlew waderbird is an international symbol linking communities in NZ, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan along its 13,000 km migratory flyway. The theatre project staged a ritual farewell to the wading birds on their annual journey an event where both cast and audience combined in music, drama, dance, song and stunning fire sculptures.

The Avondale community sculpture -- where a community artist developed a sculpture at a new public facility after bringing together many sectors of the community to contribute ideas. The resulting image has become a symbol for the community.

The Enterprise Otara projects -- which includes the development of an urban pacific dance music which is putting Otara's Maori and Polynesian youth on the international music map. Enterprise Otara is also co-ordinating many cultural projects aimed at developing Otara as the Polynesian capital of Auckland and attracting tourism into the area.

Artwork² believes these arts and cultural projects need funding at realistic levels if they are to succeed as community initiatives. They recommend a formula for funding such projects where funding bodies need to match the dollar value of the voluntary input made by communities.

For a copy of the brochure `the potential of this place', contact your local CreativeNZ offices, or for further details contact Artwork² at P.O.Box 5072, Wellesley St, Auckland 1.