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What else has been going on?
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New additions!
We welcome Deborah Sim to the Gap Filler team! She’s our newest Project Developer who is going to be facilitating a range of projects in the central city over the coming months and years. Deborah comes from a background in TV production so is used to wrangling, working with lots of folks and working to deadlines. Welcome, Deb!
And as happens every year, THE MAN, Simon Gurnsey, heads overseas for six weeks to escape the grey weather (yeah, we’re not envious or anything). In his place, to help us out when things break or get smashed and all those random curve balls that come our way when doing public projects, is Shaun Wylie. He often volunteers on our projects and it’s great to have him for a short time as part of the team.
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OPEN CITY is happening!
Our Open City project is happening! At long last. The parking meter is IN and we’re in the testing phase, planning to have it all working by the end of June/early July all going well. Open City is all about celebrating and sharing the sweet, free things that make Christchurch interesting and special. Like Cunningham House in the Botanic Gardens or a family of eels near the Antigua Street Boat Sheds.
The Open City project developed from the Gap Filler team questioning how things are given value in a city. So often, these things are attractions or activities that cost money - zoos, attractions and activities etc. We're really interested in those little things that make the city interesting and different, but that are free.
So we're developing a project that seeks to celebrate these things, but also share them. Kind of like a secret club that you want to join. It will centre around a parking meter in Cathedral Square that vends a different sort of ticket; instead of a parking ticket, it will vend a 'sweet, free thing to do.' And there will also be a web element to this project to allow anyone who wants to to add their sweet free thing to do or to locate things to do near them, online.
We're delighted to be working with the All Right? campaign on this project who see lots of alignment with their kaupapa to support Cantabrians’ health and wellbeing. We're also collaborating with McCarthy and MAKE Collective on the creative side of things, which is ace.
We are keen to find volunteers to be moderators of the content loaded by members of the public to the website, so please email us if you're keen to be one of those people. It'll be about 1 hour per week of your time. Thanks. fillthegap@gapfiller.org.nz
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Education!
Our LETOC programme is well and truly underway. A few weeks back we hosted CO[DE] CREATE at the Epic building where students from Lincoln, Papanui and Cashmere High Schools presented their game concepts to a judging panel comprising CerebralFix game developers and Gap Filler’s Damian. These digitech students have been working on game concepts since April as part of their studies and our Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom programme. We also hosted Verena Watson from NZER who was reviewing our work so far with the LEOTC programming as part of our agreement with the Minsitry of Education.
Last week we took Papanui High Health students on a tour of some of our projects. They’re particularly interested in the health and wellbeing aspects of some of our projects, focussing on the new project, Open City as well as Dance-O-Mat and Super Street Arcade. St Martins students also paid us a visit in May and we took them on a tour of the city to a range of projects: ours and others.
If you are interested in this sort of opportunity for your children and their school, please get in touch with sally@gapfiller.org.nz and read more on our website. We are taking bookings for Terms 3 and 4 this year at present.
Consulting work
We’ve been doing lots of stuff in this space lately - working with Panuku up in Auckland, some time spent in the Yarra Ranges near Melbourne facilitating a community arts-based place making project, a trip to Nelson for some workshops and presentations and time coming up in the West Coast this month. We have also recently signed a big contract locally that will enable lots more temporary, creative community projects in the city for the next few years, so stay tuned for more info on that. We can run workshops, give presentations, take tours and more so contact us if you're interested. hannah@gapfiler.org.nz
We've also just recently sold a Dance-O-Mat licence to Wellington. The capital is about to get funkier!
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Stay warm everybody and make sure you play Attack of the Cones while you still can.
Until next time,
x Gap Filler
Dates to Diary
- Open City testing across June, we will let you know when exactly
- New game on Super Street Arcade in mid June!
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