ALL GOODS | WHAU ARTS SPACE 2016 (round 1)

All Goods | Whau Arts Space was an empty building on the main street of Avondale we transformed into a year long community art space from February 2016 – December 2016. Now closed, this page is now an archive of why, how and what took place there and to see what ALL GOODS 2.0 is up to, click here!

about : For the past years, we, Whau The People, have worked with numerous collaborators to stage the Whau Arts Festival, an annual four-day-long neighbourhood event featuring poetry, street art, tattooing, blacksmithing, lip-syncing, theatre, dance, installations, sculpture and more. In working out the programme for such a wide array of projects, we have at times grouped ideas under the headings of ‘Firecrackers’, ‘Mists’ and ‘Rocks’. These terms indicate a welcoming of all types of creative expression; activities that might last a moment as well as activities that live well beyond the festival dates.

It is a broad gambit of arts — and their makers — that this neighbourhood space All Goods is committing to championing. Our inaugural exhibition featured artists living in the Whau area as well as artists living further afield who have previously been involved with Whau The People projects. From painting to photography to moving image and sculpture, this exhibition offers a taste of local artistic diversity and celebrates the rich talent that can be found within our own communities.

The Location

1875 Great North Road, Avondale, Auckland

PledgeMe campaign

We’re going to open and run a neighbourhood arts space in Avondale, Auckland, that will be a hub for all sorts of excellent creative activities from bonsai through to painting through to karaoke.

Building on the success of a range of recent art projects in the area, this will be a space that can host exhibitions, performances, workshops, talks, screenings, meetings, parties, a children’s gallery, and everything else in between. We’re working hard to make as many of these as possible free for people to take part in.

We’ve been given an amazing (we know that’s an overused word, but really it is) opportunity to take on the lease on a key building in the Avondale main street. Thanks to the support of a local businessman, we’ve been given a greatly reduced rent which means this is possible.

We all live around the area, and like it here, and think that a space like this will be a real asset to the area. We’re keen to have a space where flash award-winning artists feel just as home as the seven year old that’s never seen a real painting before, and our previous projects have all been a part of trying to embed interesting artistic projects within the wider community.

Taking a lease on a space is a natural extension of our previous projects; having a “home” means that we can take on even more projects and provide more opportunities for the local community to do cool things.

SUPPORT US!

Thanks to our wonderful community for bringing it home.

How we started?

It’s all good at All Goods | A new community art space for West(ish) Auckland

All Goods Whau Arts Space, is about to open in the heart of Avondale. A new home for community and arts, it will be a place for everyone from award winning artists through to babies banging their first drum.

Opening on the 5th of March with an all-comers-welcome BBQ, exhibition, and party, this will be a space that can host exhibitions, performances, workshops, talks, screenings, meetings, parties, a children’s gallery, and everything else in between. Many of these will be free or low cost for participants.

The opening exhibition will feature work by a range of Whau-associated artists, including Pusi Urale, Audrey Boyle, Ross Forbes, Frances Hansen, Fiona Jack, Mr Jew Mason, Sean Kerr, Edith Amituanai, Lea Schlatter, Linda T, Maila Urale, Will Barbedes, Emma Smith, Jean Stewart, and the Creative Souls Project.

All Goods is the brainchild of the collective Whau the People, who in the two years since they have formed have run two Whau Arts Festivals, one gallery in a shoe shop, and spent two months as artists in residence at the Avondale Markets. Their aim is to marry good art with good community practices, and with no public art spaces between Ponsonby and Titirangi, they’ve decided to open their own space.