Avondale Art Park

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The Avondale Art Park is an initiative to bring art into the public spaces in the Avondale community

Story

The Art Park is an initiative to help re-activate a site in the community.

The following are excerpts from the draft proposal.

THE CONCEPT
To create a public platform for the support and development of a diverse range of Art & Artists in Avondale with an accompanying programme of events and workshops.
This project will be used as a catalyst to draw positive attention to Avondale Central and drive further activity around it’s improvement. In anticipation of the development of a new community centre and other investment in the Avondale area, this project helps signal that there are good things afoot and that the community can look forward to further improvements.

ADDITIONAL POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES
● Workshops for students from local primary and secondary schools
● Workshops and outreach for NEET Youth in collaboration with local providers
● Installations, exhibitions and performances by students from Unitec Institute of Technology and PIPA
● Graffiti and street art tours for the local community and tourists
● Graffiti Battles for local and international artists
● Events for performances, music video filming, and varying curated projects.
● Street furniture and shade building with found and upcycled materials.
● Marked parking for the informal parking activity that has begun
● Waste management and education schemes.
● Cultivation of a public herb garden
● Ground markings for activities and games

OBJECTIVES/OUTCOMES
● Urban Regeneration:
○ Create a positive social and aesthetically friendly space.
○ Provide some caretaking oversight to encourage urban pride.
○ Support the Whau Local Board priorities around developing more local paths and connections, local weed removal and restoration initiatives, and neighbourhood development projects.
● Social connectivity and empowerment:
○ Cultivate additional activities through supporting further creative projects. These projects would respond to community needs and interests in the Avondale area.
○ Create opportunities for community engagement and bump spaces by expanding the urban park offerings
● Avondale as a destination:
○ Create a drawcard destination of Avondale with positive economic benefits for local business. ABA can build destination marketing around these features in their community (much like K Road has with All Fresco).
○ Support the Local Board Plan goals to encourage innovative business and better jobs. Projects like this attract creative companies to the area and help establish a perception that the environment is conducive to these businesses.
● Promote graffiti as a legitimized artform:
○ Encourage aspiring graffiti artists to go beyond tagging and vandalism, to development of high quality work.
○ Provide youth with pathways into art and other creative opportunities through groups and organisations such as Kakano Youth Collective, Unitec Institute of Technology, and The Creative Souls Project.

A TARGET SITE - Avondale Central (formerly 3Guys) - a solution for a problem zone
There is an existing degree of anti-social activity that takes place at this site, most obviously illegal rubbish dumping. This takes a toll on both community morale and sense of pride and negates some of the gains made through the learn to ride cycle track and the Spark basketball court.
The graffiti art that happens there is already a counterpoint to this and is a much loved feature for a lot of Avondale residents and this project aims to leverage off that. It will work in alignment with the other initiatives that are planned for the site, including a pop up community centre and act as a support and backdrop for community events.
Other infrastructure to support social use could include: temporary gardens, space for activities, painted markings could be applied to the ground to encourage other games and activities; temporary furniture could be built and installed to support gatherings.
We all hope that through active positive use of the site, and ongoing care for it, the dumping and other anti-social activity will be significantly reduced. We will work closely with police and CPTED advisors to address this through design and to support their programmes.
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