It's been one year since I planted a little flag on this little website, declaring that our weekly arts news bulletin was no longer The Lowdown. It was to be known, henceforth, as the Aotearoa Artswire. It had been roughly seven years since the very first Lowdown in March 2018, and almost 24 years since the website was launched. 

The Lowdown seemed so long and unwieldy – I decided to make the list snappier, to give it a little more structure, and to pick a lead each week that I would hone into and flesh out. It has sometimes been the sort of editorial you might find at the start of a magazine, and sometimes been a reported news story. I also decided to write to you as myself, an imperfect and specific human with a specific voice and point of view. The approach shifts a little each week, depending on what’s going on, and what's on my mind. I think of the list now like a feed of updates, still a little long and unwieldy, but serving a purpose. It can be rather tedious, gathering the information each week and cleaving it down to its most essential and interesting elements, but I’ve been told, over and over again, that as unglamorous as a list is (ok, that bit is my reckon) it is very useful to keep up with the arts sector each week.

An annual marker is a great time to have some cake, and also to reflect back and look ahead. The Artswire has a very specific purpose to round up the arts news, big and small. It acts as a ticking metronome, counting each week passing, and archiving it too. That is a tradition worth keeping. I also think of it as a very direct line from me to readers, and use it to let you know why we do the things we do, and make sure you’re aware of our other stories. Underneath that, I’ve also wanted The Big Idea to have a stronger, certain voice, and to take a stand on things. We are here for the arts, and for artists – that inherently gives us a position, and things to stand for.

So what can we glean from that year of ticking? There’s been a constant, dark backdrop of scarcity held up with underappreciation. Funding, and lack of it, has cropped up over and over again, in various guises, and I hope we’ve been mindful in not just complaining, but thinking about the issues structurally and in ways that can point to solutions as well as the problems. It’s worth remembering we’re not alone in the financial dumps – it seems to be the marker of the past couple of years and the post-Covid economic slump. You only have to take a glance at the news, or around your neighbourhood, to see our health system at breaking point, people struggling to pay for the basics, and very high unemployment. Artists aren’t the only ones doing it tough – but we exist for the arts, so that’s what we focus on. It's important, especially when the sector isn’t being covered much elsewhere – another recurring theme of the year.

It hasn’t been all bad – I’ve been surprised by the number of awards, residencies, and prizes that are constantly given out. There’s been so many, in all different shapes and sizes, that I created a little sub-section for them, Due Applause. Every week there’s at least one update there, and some weeks the names of winners pile up in a huge mountain (an unwieldy list inside an unwieldy list!). It reminded me that there are treats on artists’ paths, stones to step on when the floor is lava, and celebrations that are fun to scrub up for. We’re not always whining about money, and we certainly aren’t dreary!

The most satisfying Artswires, for me, have been those which broke or covered news no other outlet was or would. RNZ cutting arts coverage, NZ songs used in AI training datasets, the end of the Asian Arts Fund, the continuing fight to reinstate Creatives in Schools, and Copyright changes. I’ve also loved the weeks I have been reflective, and almost philosophical, like when writing on the importance of art history, using AI and AI using you, the arts and right-wing governments, and roses in times of war.  

One year of the Artswire also marks one year of my editorship, and probably the time I should stop introducing myself as the “new editor”. I’ve already written about my editorial approach just two weeks ago, so I’m not going to re-hash. Instead I’ll tell you about a joy of the year. I’ve loved ushering in writers who haven't previously appeared on TBI, and writers who have, but not for a long while. Often receiving a piece of writing in my inbox is like a package in the post, you ordered something, but will it fit? Will it be as you imagined? I’ve enjoyed the different voices coming through, the different expertise and viewpoints of writers, the stories I never would have known. It’s an on-going goal of mine – to host writing on the site by a varied contributor pool, so that readers can hear from different people, in different places, on different topics. In turn those writers are platformed and receive pay and editorial support – win-win.

While I was a staff writer, an editor who had recently transitioned from being a writer told me that the biggest change was not being able to take on stories that took more than a few hours to complete. I have found this to be true also. TBI is a much smaller beast to the one she was taking care of, but we’re also a much smaller team with less resources. I've been getting a grip on how best to manage my time, worry less about the barrage of emails, form some efficient systems, and figure out my priorities. The core of an editor’s job will always be to keep the editorial engine running – to commission, support and develop writers, to keep the coverage timely and on budget, and to grow the readership. At TBI I also add social media, our weekly email, and special projects from time-to-time – but I am hoping to also be able to carve out some time to work on more stories beyond the Artswire in the year to come. 

A short pause in the Artswire

Right now I’m in Sri Lanka, hopefully seeing a baby elephant in the wild. I wrote and scheduled this before I left. I’m also away next week, and news being what it is, could not write that Artswire in advance. While there will be no Artswire next week, there will be three other stories, so do come back!

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