Polytech wins $8m in funding for arts

MARION VAN DIJK/Nelson Mail

LANDMARK VISIT: From left, Associate Tertiary Education Minister Maryan Street, Prime Minister Helen Clark, NMIT Arts and Media School head Suzie Peacock (partly obscured), polytechnic chief executive Tony Gray and MNIT council deputy chairman Ross Butler outside the old B block.

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Nelson's reputation as a cultural centre has been boosted with $8.123 million funding for a new arts and media building at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.

Prime Minister Helen Clark announced the funding during a visit to the city on Thursday. The news was greeted by applause from staff and students who packed the polytechnic's student centre.

Miss Clark said Nelson was known as a centre for arts and culture and this needed to be nurtured.

"What's happening here is a long-overdue upgrade in facilities," she said.

The new building was part of a $25 million redevelopment of the polytechnic's Nelson campus.

The Te Tari Maori teaching building was completed last year, said Miss Clark, and the new tourism and hospitality building would be finished later this year.

Polytechnic Arts and Media head of school Suzie Peacock said the new building would face Nile St, next to the new tourism and hospitality building. Plans were yet to be drawn up but "we have a fair idea of what we want".

The polytechnic aimed for the buildings to be multipurpose so they could accommodate a range of activities and programmes.

She said one of the buildings used for teaching art was the original Nelson Technical Institute building, constructed in 1904.

Polytechnic chief executive Tony Gray said the funding announcement would be remembered as one of the most significant in NMIT's history.

The new building was a "critical element" in the development of the Nelson campus. Alongside the new hospitality and tourism building, it would ensure the polytechnic could match the very best resources available to "learners from the top of the south and beyond".

Mr Gray said the funding was a "vote of confidence and support for NMIT".

During a tour of the polytechnic - and in what might have created a nervous moment for diplomatic protection squad members who were with the prime minister - Miss Clark was stopped by a former student of hers, Chris Hogan.

"You've made a really big influence on my life," he told Miss Clark, who remembered him as a political studies student in 1972. She taught the subject at Auckland University.

Mr Hogan, now a freelance photographer, gave her a photo of Tasman Bay - one of several artistic gifts she received during her visit to the city.

On Thursday she also visited the Nelson Environment Centre, Nayland College and the Victory Village Community Health centre, and spoke at a business breakfast with the Nelson-Tasman Chamber of Commerce. Miss Clark was accompanied by Nelson Labour Party candidate and Associate Tertiary Education Minister Maryan Street.

Nayland College students snapped photos and video footage of Miss Clark on their cellphones as she went on a lightning tour of the school. In response to questions from senior students, she outlined the Government's policy and her views on a range of topics, including climate change, student allowances, keeping young people in education and creating a "knowledge economy".

Miss Clark officially opened the Nelson Environment Centre at Akersten St by cutting a harakeke (flax) rope with a pair of garden clippers.

In her speech, she paid tribute to the centre's efforts to promote sustainable living in the local community, and Nelson people's reputation for being environmentally conscious.

- © Fairfax NZ News