Feature
Art in a Box
The art boxes are modular, portable steel-frame mobile art spaces that will be made available to creative types to transform into studios, pop-up galleries and retail spaces. They'll create an "arts trail" around Christchurch, where locals and tourists alike can observe captive artists at work in boxes stacked around the city.
The earthquake proved quite a blow to the Christchurch arts scene, but plans for the future provide some bright opportunities. CPIT Faculty of Creative Arts’s Martin Trusttum envisions a series of portable, modular art spaces and galleries throughout the city – and they might be here before the year’s end, writes Talia Shadwell.
The Christchurch City Council's central city plan envisions a "river of arts" connecting CPIT and Canterbury University in decades to come. But if Martin Trusttum gets his way, Christchurch will become an art gallery in itself.
"People have a perception that Christchurch is broken," said the CPIT Faculty of Creative Arts design centre manager. "We need to do something to sustain the life cycle."
Trusttum is the brains behind the "art boxes" that have piqued the interest of UC fine arts students as they struggle to find art spaces to show their work following February's quake.
Playing on an aesthetic that has more in common with shipping containers than the Louvre, Trusttum's art boxes are modular, portable steel-frame mobile art spaces that will be made available to creative types to transform into studios, pop-up galleries and retail spaces.
Trusttum hopes the concept will create an "arts trail" around Christchurch, where locals and tourists alike can observe captive artists at work in boxes stacked around the city.
With a view to revitalising the shaken city's arts scene sooner rather than later, the first boxes will be revealed at a launch party on CPIT campus in mid-October. If all goes to plan, Trusttum hopes to have more available for rent by December, with each box to be leased at a flat rate of $50 a week.
But don't be fooled by the slick minimalism. Trusttum calls the boxes "cost effective", but at $12,500 a pop to construct, the innovation doesn't come cheap. The powers-that-be at UC certainly aren't buying the idea, much to Trusttum's disappointment. But fortunately for those Canterbury students interested in the concept, the art box supporters' submission to Council for $2 million of creative arts funding has so far drawn a positive reception.
Webbs Auction House will be raising funds for the concept— which is being backed by home-grown artists such as Julia Morison and Dick Frizzell— in an Auckland auction planned for 27 October.
Should the auction raise the $250,000 in private donations Trusttum hopes for, the first art boxes will be available to Christchurch artists by early December.
When Christchurch's treasured inner city art galleries eventually rise from the rubble, the fully sustainable art boxes can be put to good use as temporary residential dwellings that will last for over 50 years.
Find out more at artboxnz.weebly.com
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