Revamped Millers Acre site unveiled as new arts hub
Nelson’s new arts and cultural hub has been unveiled after a $1.25 million redevelopment of the former iSite at Millers Acre.
Tāwera, at Millers Acre, underwent a six-month refurbishment, transforming the former visitor information centre into a flexible, multi-use facility for exhibitions, workshops and events.
The site will also be the home of the arts development agency Hiwa, formerly known as Arts Council Nelson.
Photo: Braden Fastier/Nelson Mail
Hiwa transition director Rohan O’Neill-Stevens said he felt a “real sense of relief and anticipation” at the centre’s blessing ceremony on Friday.
The centre took its name, Tāwera, from Venus, the morning star burning on the horizon, he said.
The name replaced the moniker of the now closed Refinery ArtSpace, the organisation’s first home on Halifax St, housed in a building originally constructed as a tobacco refinery.
Like the Refinery ArtSpace, Tāwera will present a programme of exhibitions throughout the year, alongside events and workshops.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith said the unveiling of the new hub was a significant milestone.
“Arts is part of Nelson’s DNA, and our heritage as a city, and also our future,” he said.
Smith outlined some other major milestones in Nelson’s history – the opening of the Theatre Royal in the 1870s, the Suter in the 1890s, and the creation of the first Arts Council in New Zealand in the 1960s.
The city had “huge pride” that World of Wearable Arts was developed here in the 1980s, and it was in the 1990s that its arts festival got its start.
The Adam Chamber Music Festival, Opera in the Park, and the more recent clay and jewellery festivals were all part of that heritage, Smith said, of which Friday’s opening was another significant step.
This investment would also help in the city’s bid to be recognised by UNESCO as a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art.
Smith said his hope for this facility was that it would be a thriving centre that broadly welcomed all parts of Nelson’s creative sector, whether it be the musical, visual arts, crafts, or ceramics, and that it welcomed people of all ages.
Hiwa is to rent the space under a community lease, paying peppercorn rent until 2028 while sub-leases are established.
The centre’s first offering, Ordinary Wonders, a community storytelling and visual arts exhibition, will open to the public on August 15.
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