Boy did we get things wrong. There we were thinking that Creative New Zealand had turned down the Depots cultural interview programme because of
content issues. The Depot is involved in creating an invaluable series of interviews with people who have impacted on the New Zealand culture. The only problem is that the culture they investigate is achingly conservative, primarily white and male. Did this impact on CNZ? Doesn’t sound like it. They wrote back to the Depot telling them that the questions raised by the application (and one presumes the reason for its demise) were the “ownership and copyright of the recorded material”, the process involved in “the recorded material deemed appropriate for uploading” and “marketing”. Hey couldn’t all of that bureaucratic box ticking been sorted out with a quick phone call?
The Depot’s release of the CNZ follow up also sheds an interesting light on their rather stern go-away approach to customer service. “Notwithstanding the value of your project, and the more than 50 interviews which you have already conducted, other applications were assessed as being a better fit with Creative New Zealand’s strategic outcomes.” Not much you can say in reply to that, which presumably was the point.
The CNZ strategic outcomes are: New Zealanders participate in the arts; high-quality New Zealand art is developed; New Zealanders experience high-quality arts and New Zealand arts gain international success.
