Latest issue

by Jo Mills - At The World’s Edge Festival

It’s no secret that the world of arts is having a tough time right now. Funding’s hard to come by, if at all, and the pie itself, let alone the share that arts events and foundations receive, gets smaller every year. For those in the arts sector, this is a big issue, but what does this mean for the broader community?

The arts inspire, they get to the heart of you in a way that little else can. Readers of a certain age will remember buying cassettes and CDs, poring over the cover notes, soaking up every shred of information about their favourite group or artist. Nowadays, there is a whole genre of memes about middle-aged memory loss: forgetting where you put your keys, but somehow still able to recall every lyric of an obscure song from 1995.

It’s not just about the 40+ demographic, far from it. The arts, be it portraiture, ballet, rock or chamber music, make you think. It challenges you. It’s not a blank canvas - that part of the task’s already been done for you by the composers, the artists and the performers - but there are gaps for you to fill in. Type in “Van Gogh’s sunflowers” or “Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Major” into your favourite AI and it’s not going to tell you what to feel. It can’t. Isn’t that wonderful? Even somehow reassuring?

But it’s not a one-way gratification, there’s something in it for the artist too. A composer’s work will only sing when there’s someone to hear it. A musician responds to their audience as much as the audience responds to them.

Imagine, then, what arts in the Southern Lakes can do, for audiences and artists alike! We’re literally at the base of something remarkable, where better to be inspired and challenged? We see this all the time with the thrill seekers in the region who make the most of our incredible setting but look a little closer and you’ll see this is happening in the arts too.

Te Atamira made a name for itself as a cultural hub in the Whakatipu and its existence has opened international doors. Next month for example, At the World’s Edge Festival welcomes world-leading chamber musicians to the region, artists who are more accustomed to playing in vast concert halls yet who are drawn here by the intimate spaces and the incredible backdrop that our region has to offer. The opportunity to perform and engage so closely with the audience lifts them as it does a concert goer. It’s a rarity for artists of this calibre to descend on our region, it’s uncommon for them to be playing in these small spaces set against mountains, vineyards and in the tiny settlement like Bannockburn.

How does it make them feel? Ask them. They can tell you. ChatGPT can’t.