The mirrored facade of the Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre is a major tourist attraction in New Plymouth. Photo / Sam Hartnett
The mirrored facade of the Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre is a major tourist attraction in New Plymouth. Photo / Sam Hartnett
The director’s role at the internationally renowned Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Len Lye Centre will be axed - as well as about 12 fulltime equivalent jobs across New Plymouth’s cultural institutions - if a proposed restructure is adopted.
But heavy hitters in the Taranaki arts scene say the shake-up could be a good thing.
Part of a wider “transformation initiative” at the district council, the “cultural experiences team review” - seen by RNZ - captures the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre and the combined museum-library space, Puke Ariki.
Under the proposal - first reported by The Big Idea - 26 roles would be disestablished, six rescoped and 28 new positions created.
One significant change would be axing the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre director’s role in favour of a new position - cultural experiences manager - which would oversee all the institutions.
The gallery’s current director, Zara Stanhope, was appointed to the new role late last year in an earlier phase of the restructure.
Other significant new roles were in the Māori and Pacific collections and exhibitions space.
New Plymouth District Council chief executive Gareth Green has pledged to save $10 million a year in staff and consulting costs, and the council has already shed a quarter of its senior management team and 17 third-tier managers.
He said the “cultural experiences team review” proposal was a continuation of that process and, if adopted, would result in efficiencies through aligning the institutions more closely.
“So, for example, some of those back-of-house things and some of those technical matters such as exhibition installation and design where the skills cover all areas.
“Another example might be customer services. We have customer services over at Puke Ariki and we have customer services in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. And the way we run those different retail areas ... we can do that more efficiently and better by having them combined.”
He said if adopted, the restructure would unfortunately result in job losses.
“So bearing in mind we are still going through the consultation process, the proposal put to the team provides for about a 13 per cent reduction in terms of fulltime equivalent jobs and a similar reduction in terms of the dollar count for those combined operations.”
That equated to the loss of about 12 fulltime equivalent jobs, Green said.
He was confident nothing would be lost by appointing a cultural experiences manager across all the institutions.
“That’s very much a leadership role. It’s very much leading the combined institutions and bringing them together and providing that overall guidance and leadership of the activities.
“Each of the institutions will still have leaders in those spaces, which will combine into an overall leadership team, so they’ll still have their own place in the world ... and their own expertise sitting within those spaces.”
The late Len Lye with one of his kinetic sculptures, Storm King. Photo / Len Lye Foundation Collection
New Zealander Len Lye was a leading kinetic artist and experimental filmmaker who entrusted the Len Lye Foundation with the care of this artwork shortly before his death in 1980 and chose the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery as their home.
