Philippa Stevenson: Cultural desert? Not if you follow the map

We've got a great sense of humour in the Waikato. We probably laugh the heartiest at those brewery billboards that send up - some would say disparage - Waikato culture.

You'd be a sad fool not to recognise the accuracy of the gag.

But you'd be a blinkered fool to think that, as some billboard wit has it, matches are the toilet freshener of choice in every Waikato home or that we really consider the rivalry between Ford and Holden a holy war.

Clearly, the latter definition only applies to rugby games.

But even the most ardent advocates of Waikato culture know that phrase is considered an oxymoron - at least when it comes to things of a highbrow nature.

Arts Waikato chief executive Hilary Falconer told me the other day, in a "know thy challenge" sort of way, that the Waikato was seen as a "cultural desert".

A few days later, Hamilton City Council arts co-ordinator Emma Pullar used the same bleak words. This time, though, we were huddled over a document that gave a lie to them.

Indeed, Waikato now boasts a cultural map: a directory of information that identifies and documents Waikato's artistic and cultural resources, which is possibly the first of its kind in the country.

It's a Hamilton City Council initiative and Waikato is defined as Hamilton city and its immediate neighbourhood roughly bounded by Taupiri, Raglan, Karapiro and Orini.

Within a month the database will be launched on the internet with about 700 entries, but it is expected to grow with public input.

What could possibly be on it?

Even after three months of thrashing the Waikato bushes for arts legacies and cultural stories, Sarah Lowry, the Waikato University screen and media student who compiled the database, was surprised at what she turned up.

She was startled to find Hamilton has at least 11 recording studios and 32 nationally significant bands associated with it.

We, perhaps, shouldn't be so surprised. After all, this is a city that, albeit 30 years after the event, last year celebrated its role in inspiring the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Under the broad heading "arts and culture", Lowry's list also includes Benny Castles, the assistant menswear designer for fashion label World, and Dame Janet and Blackwood Paul, co-owners of the long-gone Paul's Book Arcade.

Once named as one of the 14 best bookshops in the world, Paul's published some of New Zealand's best-recognised authors, including Hamilton-born Frank Sargeson, Keith Sinclair and C.K. Stead.

Awareness of other treasures seems to depend on your personal longevity or length of residence.

I thought, for instance, that everyone knew that the McGillicuddy Clan in its various permutations - street theatre, highland army, serious party - originated in Hamilton. But recently I found myself explaining that fact to a stunned out-of-towner who, unlike me, had no recollection of the Garden Place antics that stunned the cow cockies on their monthly visits to town.

The McGillicuddies and their spawn get a mention on the cultural map but what some would consider essential Hamilton cultural history - for example, the Starlight Ballroom and its popular band, the Satellites - has yet to be entered.

Council arts and culture unit manager Geoff Williams is aware things have only just begun. He said Lowry's research had highlighted the many facets of the region's cultural landscape.

Once the website is running publicly people can add to the references as well as glean information from them.

The one-stop shop for locating historic or current artists, actors, musicians, writers, filmmakers, computer programmers and others may be unique here but there's another model just across the ditch.

The New South Wales city of Queanbeyan has had a cultural map since 2001 designed to "reveal the real character or culture of Queanbeyan through an exploration of the values, experiences and aspirations of the people who live and work here".

Queanbeyan's population is just 30,000. With more than three times that number of people, Hamilton's cultural map looks as if it could make the Waikato look more like an oasis than a desert.