Mark Tantrum
At the Arts Pasifika Award 2018: Back, from left: Makerita Urale Caren Rangi, Dame Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, Hon Minister Carmel Sepuloni, Minister ‘Aupito and MCs Malama T Pole and Fuimaono Karl Endemann. Front, from left, award winners: Rosanna Raymond, Sulieti Fieme a Burrows, Tui Emma Gillies, Iosefa Enari, Angela Tiatia, Leki Jackson Bourke, and Appollonia Wilson on behalf of Benson Wilson.
In this week’s guest arts column, Makerita Urale writes on being an artist in an institution, after she became part of the senior leadership team at Creative New Zealand. As an artist, my entry into Creative New Zealand initially generated the same sense of alienation and bewilderment I experienced as a Pacific immigrant child leaving my dad’s village in Savai’i Island, for New Zealand. As an artist, working in government was a foreign land. Despite CNZ’s purpose to encourage, promote and support the arts I encountered a different world with a different language. It