Position:

Artistic Director

Location:

Square Edge Arts Centre, Palmerston North

Organisation:

Square Edge Community Arts (SECA)

Reporting to:

SECA Trust Board

Hours of work:

Part time 25 – 30 hours per week

Some weekend and evening work required

Salary

Per annum at pro-rata, dependent on skills and qualifications

Join our small, dynamic team dedicated to fostering collaboration within the arts sector. You'll manage our exhibitions, programmes, and events, ensuring an engaging experience for our community visitors and stakeholders. As a not-for-profit organisation, we seek a proactive individual with a talent for securing funding to help drive our mission forward.

About Square Edge:

Square Edge Community Arts is a not-for-profit community arts organisation which has over 40 years of experience working with and within our community. We are based in the beautiful art deco Square Edge Arts Centre Building on Te Marae o Hine, the Square.

Square Edge are governed by a community board with council representation and have a team of four passionate staff all working part-time hours to manage our arts centre building, galleries, tenancies, venue hire, and a wide array of exhibitions, programmes, and events. We house, host, and offer self-representation and the opportunity to build sustainable incomes to our eclectic, vibrant, colourful and hugely diverse community.

Position Description - Artistic Director:

The role of Artistic Director involves working with the Business Manager and other staff to plan, design, manage and implement exhibitions, projects, programmes, and events that meet defined organisational objectives.

The Artistic Director collaborates with both internal and external stakeholders to identify community needs and priorities, access sustainable funding, and manage relationships across the wider arts and cultural sector. Working closely with community, SECA tenants, venue users, and visitors the Artistic Director supports aspirations, works toward sector capability development, and instigates and maintains connections. This role also involves media liaison, risk management, and funding applications and reporting. Ongoing professional development is supported.

Professional knowledge and experience required:

• Formal qualifications and/ or established professional background in creative arts, exhibition and event management and facilitation, learning and development - preferably within community settings
• Shared vision - shared approach, as part of a positive, respectful team culture
• Commitment to enabling broad community engagement and participation
• Ability to provide mentorship, share skills and transfer knowledge effectively
• A strong relationship-based approach and established community connections
• Experience in the development and management of events, programmes, and projects with diverse communities
• Ability to be flexible and to quickly adapt to the organisations changing demands
• Experience in applying for and reporting on project and operational funding
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent workstreams
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Highest level integrity and transparency
• Strong commitment to and understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• Knowledge of tikanga and te reo Māori would be an asset