Services
Tēnā koutou katoa, nau mai
I am an independent contractor offering curatorial, project management, strategic, and research services for community groups, creative organisations, local government and funding bodies.
Overall, my work involves advocating for, promoting and growing the creative ecology, connection to place, and community well-being in Aotearoa.
If you are interested in contracting my services get in touch and we can discuss your needs.
Melissa
My services & skills
Creative project delivery
Project management
Curatorial leadership
Placemaking
Arts based community development
Strategy development
Qualitative and quantitative research
Strategic planning
Digital strategy development
Report, policy and arts writing
My Values
Integrity
Put simply, I prioritise doing projects tika – right and well. This means working ethically and authentically with courage and competence.
Openness
I value gathering knowledge. With that comes seeking understanding, learning the appropriate tikanga for the context and making space for community to share their expertise. I approach projects with curiosity and care.
Adaptability
This means being resourceful within tight budgets or constrained circumstance, being flexible about how we reach our goal, letting go of what is not useful, and keeping a weather eye on a project so we can respond to failure points and lean in to successes.
Initiative
I take action. Many of my major projects have come about because I identified an issue or opportunity and actively looked for considered and practical ways to respond. I bring the same energy to my contract work, often delivering beyond brief.
About
With a background in academia and the visual arts and a concrete grounding in creative practice and event delivery Melissa’s professional networks reach into urban design and the visual, performing and literary arts. Her work spans research, advocacy, culture and heritage preservation, community development, event production, place development through temporary arts, community participation and co-creation with a focus on building sector resilience in the contemporary and performing arts.
Melissa is the lead researcher for Stable Spaces, an initiative funded by Manatū Taonga to develop resources for space ownership in the arts. She was the director of the Urban Walking Festival from 2019 to 2022 and guided the digital strategy for the Going West Writers Festival. Between 2014 and 2021 she worked as the Whau Community Arts Broker, an initiative of the Whau Local Board to support temporary arts activations across a local area. More recently she co-convened and managed the 2024 Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium – Rising Algorithms – and led a tender for Creative New Zealand’s request for proposals for a Digital Arts Agency. She has a PhD from the University of Sydney and her writing has been published in magazines, academic journals, and exhibition and artist catalogues.