Monday, October 26, 2009

LivinginPeace Project Resident Artist Norma Burrowes

We are pleased to announce our resident artist this summer will be Norma Burrowes, she will be staying with us from January 1st until March 10, 2010.

Norma comes from Northern Ireland and is a featured artist of the Northern Ireland Arts Council. She works in a range of mediums, but is especially known for her photography and her artwork involving UV lights.

http://vividlogic-art.blogspot.com/

LivinginPeace Project Information


LivinginPeace Project Information


The LivinginPeace project aims to combine elements of art, tourism, agriculture and education to create an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable business.


Rongo Backpackers & Gallery, Karamea Farm Baches and the Global Gypsy Gallery form the financial base of the project and support the development of the project by providing income to fund expansion. The eco-tourism businesses incorporate art, permaculture (permanent organic agriculture), and volunteerism, into their management structures and strive to be energy efficient, progressive thinking, professional and profitable.


Sustainability: Any business venture has an environmental impact, there is no way to avoid this fact, but the LivinginPeace Project strives to minimise the environmental cost of operating a business.

· Promotional Material: Rongo Backpackers & Gallery and Karamea Farm Baches have recyclable rack card advertising. The advertising cards are postcards so they can be recycled, doubling their advertising potential in the process in a non-invasive way to a pre-qualified target market…a friend of a satisfied guestomer. When the recipient of the card receives it, they also receive advertising information about the business and are likely to choose either facility in the event they visit Karamea. (Many other businesses now do this, which is great, but Rongo was the first.

· 4th Night Free: Both Rongo Backpackers & Gallery and Karamea Farm Baches offer the fourth night free. There are many reasons for this, firstly, Karamea is not yet a well-known tourist destination and there are a lot of great attractions to see and activities to do here. By offering an incentive for people to stay four nights, it also gives them an opportunity to explore the region and get and appreciation for the quality of the tourist experience on offer in the region. Fourth night free is also an eco-tourism concept in which we reduce the amount of water, electricity, washing detergent, labour and cleaning products we use by 75% (as oppose to cleaning the rooms and doing the laundry daily for single-night stays) and improve the longevity of the linen, towels and laundry equipment in the process. In addition, the 4th night free policy enables us get past the initial “Who are you?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” questions and into conversations of more substance by getting to know our guestomers over four days…a far more satisfying experience for both guestomer and accommodation provider.

· Solar Hot Water: Rongo Backpackers & Gallery has not used any electricity to heat water in the past four years of operation. The water is heated with a solar system and augmented with a wood-burning water heater and a wetback system on the living room fireplace. This is a significant cost saving in terms of economics and the environment. Karamea Farm Baches also have solar pre-heaters installed to defray the cost of heating the water with electricity and solar systems will be installed to heat the water at the baches in future.

· Carbon Sink: A 31-hectare (80-acre) regenerating bush property provides a carbon offset for the emissions associated with the business. To encourage people to fly to New Zealand from Europe, Asia and America and other parts of the world incurs a carbon cost that we must take responsibility for. To counter this, we keep the bush block as a carbon sink to absorb the carbon we produce in the service of our business. The property doubles as an attraction and we plan to build a simple camp ground there to enable people to enjoy the property and have an experience that is not possible in many parts of the world.

· Permaculture Farm: The project aims to be self-sufficient in the production of food––fruit, vegetables, meat and firewood––in addition, we will provide locally grown organic meals to our guestomers. The service will be established on a “no waste” model, the meals will be simple, organic, healthy and locally produced from seasonal fruit, vegetables, venison, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish and other seafood etc we have available at the time and the number of meals will reflect the availability of food.

· Three-Track Loop: We have registered three Web sites: www.abeltasmantrack.com, www.heaphytrack.com, www.wangapekatrack.com which offer tourists who have travelled to New Zealand from distant locations a low carbon-emission holiday option while they are here to defray the carbon cost of their travels. The concept is to enable people to have a fabulous holiday and experience a wonderful part of New Zealand under their own steam and without using much fuel. Staring in Nelson, trampers are taken to the start of the Abel Tasman Track and walk or kayak through to Collingwood where they can stay and rest and enjoy day trips in the region taking in the attractions of Golden Bay, Farewell Spit, Whriki Beach etc before walking through to Karamea on the Heaphy Track. In Karamea, the trampers can stay in either Karamea Farm Baches or Rongo Backpackers & Gallery for as long as they like and have day trips to the Oparara Basin, Karamea Gorge, Mt. Stormy, and Lake Hanlon etc before walking back to Nelson on the Wangapeka Track. The idea is being developed, www.heaphytrack.com is complete and work has begun on www.wangapekatrack.com. The package has significant potential to attract advertising money from accommodation providers, transport service operators, restaurants, retail outlets, outdoor equipment providers etc, which would fund to development and maintenance of the Web sites and provide a steady annual income to fund development of the other ventures.

· Mountain biking on the Heaphy: There are moves afoot to permit mountain biking on the Heaphy Track and the Department of Conservation is warming to the concept. The Heaphy Track is somewhat underutilised and traffic is very seasonal. However, the track is open all year-round and the winter is considered by people in the know to be the best time to do the Heaphy as there are no sand flies, the huts are half-price, the weather is quite settled and there are very few people on the track. To permit mountain biking on the Heaphy Track would be a boon for Rongo Backpackers & Gallery and Karamea Farm Baches as well as all the other service businesses in Karamea as it would iron out the seasonality of our respective businesses by increasing the tourist traffic in the winter months. It would also lead to better utilisation of the DOC huts and facilities and provide additional income to maintain and improve the amenities on the Heaphy Track.

· Wwoofing: Both Karamea Farm Baches and Rongo Backpackers & Gallery are staffed by volunteers and wwoofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). This process significantly reduces the running costs of the businesses and provides an opportunity to teach people from all over the world about organic farming, business management, building maintenance and renovation, the hospitality industry, eco-tourism and sustainability. Wwoofers are invited to stay with us and help run the businesses for a minimum of two weeks, most stay much longer as we have an enjoyable, productive, educational and vibrant enterprise that enables travellers to stay a while in one location and to get involved in life in Karamea while they are here in return for their labour…a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Tourism: International travel is the best form of self-education available. To experience different cultures, fashions, food, architecture, art styles, language, traditions etc is extremely beneficial for and individual’s personal development and tourism is an important element in the LivinginPeace Project business model. Karamea is rapidly becoming a popular destination for both domestic and international travellers and the LivinginPeace Project aims to provide travellers to Karamea with a comprehensive, vibrant, educational and memorable travel experience.

Permaculture: Permaculture (permanent+agriculture) is a self-sustaining organic farming system that will provide agricultural produce for the LivinginPeace Project volunteers, enable us to serve fresh, locally grown organic meals to our guestomers, which will add value to our farm produce, provide top quality, healthy food for people staying at our accommodation facilities and minimise the carbon cost of food production by reducing the amount of food imported to Karamea to feed visitors to the region.

Art: Artistic excellence and creativity is the cornerstone of the LivinginPeace Project. For example, Rongo is the result of the collective imaginations of many creative people from all round the world and the entire property is now a work of art, which houses a fabulous and diverse local and international art collection.


· Artist in Residency Programme: The LivinginPeace Project hosts a resident artist each year. Thus far, we have hosted three international visual artists:


2007: Dave Besseling: www.davebesseling.com

2008: Kyle Browne: www.kylebrowne.com

2009: Jason Ponzuric: www.artistponzi.com

2010: Norma Burrowes: http://vividlogic-art.blogspot.com/

In addition, we have hosted numerous artistic events, including a poetry recital by Sam Hunt, literary evening with New Zealand authors Kate De Goldie, Peter Wells, Nick Bollinger, Tusiata Avia, Fiona Farrell and James Brown, as well as musical performances by; Luke Hurley, Paul Ubana-Jones, Karen Hunter, Paul McLaney and many others.

· Global Gypsy Gallery: In 2006, we purchased the old Karamea Information Centre building, which is in a prime retail location in the main street of Karamea opposite the supermarket. The building is being transformed into a gallery, Internet cafĂ©, recycling shop, and organic food shop. In the future, it will be afford us a means of selling excess farm produce, and provide a central location for a tour booking office. The building is jointly owned by Gerar Toye a well-known New Zealand photographer and author, and Paul Murray, who is also a photographer. The shop displays and sells photographs by both artists as well as the work of other local artists.

· Karamea Radio: Rongo Backpackers & Gallery houses a community radio station–Karamea Radio 107.5FM. The radio station offers and opportunity for visitors and residents of Karamea to be disc jockeys, play music live on air. The radio station provides a community service, a source of entertainment, education, a means of broadcasting information about local events and civil service emergencies if required. Future possibilities include; boosting the signal strength to increase broadcast range, a recording studio for musicians, online streaming of the radio station and commercialisation to allow for advertising.

· Short Film Festival: Rongo Backpackers & Gallery has a small cinema in which we show foreign, art-house, documentary and short films to our guests. In 2008, we hosted the Waikato Moving Images Trust, a short film festival. A short film by Gerar Toye “Zen and the art of Hitchhiking” was also made at Rongo. We hope to host an annual short-film festival and encourage other filmmakers to use our facilities to make movies


Health: Health and fitness is an important part of the LivinginPeace Project. We aim to provide healthy, nutritious, locally grown organic meals for our guestomers as well as a range of outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, mountain climbing, fishing, sports and leisure programmes that encourage visitors to Karamea to participate in active physical pursuits while they are staying with us.


Education: International tourism provides and excellent opportunity to introduce people from all over the world to the concepts of permaculture, sustainability and organic food production, cooking as well as art, cultural information, green building, recycling, waste minimisation and social harmony. Last year, Rongo guestomers came from over 40 different countries, which provides for cultural exchange, understanding, education and opportunities for broadening individual world perspectives. Rongo is a centre of international cultural exchange and the wwoofing programme lends itself to this particularly well as people from all over the world live and work with each other in the LivinginPeace Project.


· Tours: We recently purchased a 10-seater shuttle bus that will enable us to put together a series of tours around the Karamea region that will incorporate trips to scenic locations like the Oparara Basin, Mt. Stormy, Karamea Gorge etc as well as enabling us to pass on historical information about the region’s gold-mining, saw-milling, flax-milling industries as well as stories about the development of the dairy and tourism economies, the Karamea wharf, Murchison earthquake and the construction of the road linking Karamea with Westport.

· www.wildwildwest.co.nz This Website has been registered with the view to providing transport services along the West Coast involving other like-minded organisations and providing transport for travellers interested in exploring other eco-tourism operations on the Coast. This is a future project and will develop as resources become available.

Future: Tours, permaculture farm, campsite on land, locally grown organic food cafe, language exchange programme as well as yoga, photography, permaculture, organic growing, healing workshops.


History:
Rongo Backpackers & Gallery is a microcosm of the LivinginPeace Project, in effect, a test case, or practice run to determine the efficacy of the model. Karamea Farm Baches is the second stage of the project development and provides accommodation options for a different market while expanding the project’s agricultural possibilities. The farm behind the bach complex will be developed into a permaculture block that produces locally grown, organic meals for our guestomers (guests+customers).

Karamea has enormous horticultural potential, fertile, well-drained alluvial soils, plenty of sunshine and evenly spaced, ample rainfall throughout the year, which alleviates the need for irrigation (a large cost saving in the establishment of a horticulture farm).

It began in 2001 with the purchase of an 80-acre (30-hectare) property in Karamea, which is a small town servicing a community of about 700 people at the top of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The initial intention was to build an artist’s retreat on the property, which borders on the Kahurangi National Park and has about 400 metres of frontage to the Karamea River. However, the densely forested block proved unsuitable for such a venture as the many sandflies in the summertime was contrary to the LivinginPeace concept. It was decided that the sandflies were there to protect the forest from human habitation and the site for the retreat was changed when a more suitable location later became available. The bush block will be preserved for the benefit of humanity and respected for the beauty, diversity, peace and tranquility it holds, as well as to provide a carbon offset to counter emissions produced in the service of the business ventures. Simple walking tracks will be made through the forest to allow people to experience and enjoy the sanctity of the bush without destroying it and upsetting the delicate balance of nature.

The Karamea region is a paradise blessed with natural beauty; forest-covered mountains, long white sandy beaches, broad free-flowing rivers, lush green fields and fresh clear air. The region is effectively a geographical Island. It is 100 kilometres north of the closest major town of Westport and is protected on three sides by the mountains of the Kahurangi National Park and to the west by the Tasman Sea. As a result, Karamea is a unique rural enclave, protected from development, commercialism and many of the social ills found in urban communities. People stop and chat with each other when they meet by chance, drivers wave to each other as they pass on the road, the publican knows everyone by name and when something needs to be done, the people band together to share their skills and help each other out. This is the kind of community spirit the LivinginPeace project seeks to foster and proliferate.

The project took a new direction almost before it had begun when finance for the artist’s retreat proved difficult to obtain. Banks were less than supportive of the concept and financial support for the project through traditional channels was not forthcoming. An alternative means of funding the LivinginPeace venture had to be found and the answer was to develop cash producing businesses to later substantiate a loan for the building of the retreat. The old Karamea maternity hospital was purchased in June 2004 and converted into a backpacker’s business and gallery space. Ironically, financiers were happy to lend more than twice the amount originally sought for the artist’s retreat for a profit-motivated business venture, which somewhat contravened the initial concept of the project, but it became the means of achieving a greater goal.

A team of volunteers from around the world has been working since mid-2004 to convert the building into a hostel called Rongo, which means Peace in Maori. The backpackers business will provide accommodation for the volunteers and a means of financing the LivinginPeace project. The volunteers receive free accommodation in return for their energy and efforts in helping to develop Rongo and the realisation of the LivinginPeace project.

Today Rongo is a microcosm of the LivinginPeace project and has very much become a steppingstone toward the ultimate goal of incorporating the elements of; art, permaculture, tourism into a sustainable business model. The building has been transformed inside and out into a fabulously vibrant, colourful and creatively inspiring place, which now includes a community radio station, organic vegetable and aesthetic gardens, a fire bath and an excellent art gallery featuring the work of local and international artists.

The venture expanded further with the May, 2005 purchase of the Karamea Farm Baches, an additional accommodation facility with four houses, three cabins and five self-contained baches, plus a 4-acre farm, which borders the Karamea estuary lagoon and looks west to the Tasman Sea. The farm is the perfect location for the LivinginPeace Project as there are few sandflies in the summer, the location is attractive with great views west to the sea and estuary lagoon and back into the mountains of the Kahurangi National Park to the north, east and south. The farmland is well drained, fertile and highly productive and will be converted into a permaculture farm that will provide food for both the people involved in the LivinginPeace Project and guestomers at our accommodation facilities.

The concept of both Rongo Backpackers & Gallery, Karamea Farm Baches and the LivinginPeace Project is to create an artistically inspiring environment where people can live, as they want in return for helping maintain and develop the venture, with the only rule being to respect the rights of others and to take responsibility for your own actions...common sense. The project is open to everyone, all nationalities, sexes, religions, ages etc, but it is especially hoped that artistic and creative people will come and stay and that the venue becomes a centre for creativity, invention, innovation and artistic excellence.

The project aims to transcend the paradox faced by all young artists, which is: no one buys their work because no one knows who they are, and no one knows who they are because no one buys their work…which makes it very difficult for young artists to get established and support themselves financially as they attempt to develop their talent and skill. This coupled with the fact that creative art skills and creative marketing skills are generally not found in the same person, and the fact that many artists are uncomfortable selling their own work means that many aspiring and talented artists are forced to give up before achieving artistic success through financial hardship, frustration and despair.

The LivinginPeace Project seeks to assist aspiring artists by helping to market their work through the gallery, exhibitions, the Internet and other means to enable them to get established and recognized as artists to allow them to continue their work elsewhere.

The LivinginPeace building is, from the air, in the shape of a giant peace sign.

Dutch architect Femke Bijlsma volunteered to draw up the building design and will provide ongoing technical support and advice throughout the building process. At the centre will be a simple community area including a cafe, lounge, restaurant, bar, reading/chill-out space etc. The spokes of the peace sign will be covered, raised wooden walkways as seen in old Japanese ryokan inns. The walkways will lead to a large circular deck where there will be about 12 rooms to accommodate both short and long-term visitors. In the middle will be gardens in which we will grow produce for the restaurant and also flowers and ornamental plants for aesthetic appeal. In front, near the entrance, there will be a gallery to display artworks by resident artists and a shop to sell artworks and other items produced at the centre by the people involved.

The project is quite ambitious and there is much work to be done. The LivinginPeace Project needs volunteers to come and contribute to the venture in whatever capacity they are able, whether it be building, cooking, making music, making people laugh, painting, cleaning, singing, dancing, or offering financial support...everyone has something they can contribute.