A pre-Christmas solo exhibition is just one of the success stories to come out of a new art gallery for marginalised artists recently opened by the Connections Trust in Dunedin.
“We were thrilled with the first solo exhibition by long time studio artist Tanya Faiva. The opening night was a real collaborative effort with Tanya’s family and support workers and our studio manager. It was very well attended and Tanya sold nine of her paintings,” says Connections Trust programme manager, Kay Murray.
Connections Trust run a centre-based day programme for people with very high support needs and an art studio and gallery for artists with disabilities. They currently cater for around 50 people.
The Trust was set up in 1992 to help provide services for people with intellectual disabilities moving out of Cherry Farm hospital to live in Dunedin and Mosgiel.
The parents and advocates of people at Cherry Farm had insisted that patients should go out from their new residences to independent day programmes as one of the conditions of their consent to move from Cherry Farm. At that time the Connections Trust facility (a former Kindergarten) was the only one that was fully wheelchair accessible, so was therefore allocated most of the wheelchair users from Cherry Farm.
Connections Trust has been exempted from production work and has dispensation to focus on community participation and recreational activities. From this the organisations name was born, “We saw the services as a way to help people who had lived in a big institution connect with the community – hence Connections,” says Kay.
In the future there is hope that the gallery will provide connections to the greater community, as the Trust aims to offer space to artists with disabilities throughout the South Island, as well as open up markets for the artists to sell their work.
Kaye says of the Trust, “We are passionate about providing opportunities for meaningful creative expression for people with disabilities and educating the wider community about the uniqueness and artistic merit of work done by artists with disabilities.”