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About us

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Kia ora & Welcome

Welcome to Auckland Arts Festival - Nau mai, Haere mai ki Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Makaurau.

Welcome to Auckland Arts Festival – a celebration of people, place, culture and art. A time to come together as a community to laugh, to cry, to be amazed, to contemplate and to imagine.

Artists create works that echo what is happening and has happened in our world. They challenge us to consider what is important. We as audience members respond to their work and take our impressions of those stories, sounds and images with us into our worlds.

Auckland Arts Festival 2015 has moments of great beauty and of dazzling skill; there are times to have fun and quiet moments for us to contemplate what came before and how it impacts now. As a whole it presents a single moment in time, never to be repeated.

As we reflect on life, traditions, politics and wars of the past through the work of artists from New Zealand and around the world, our hope is that their work can help us to understand each other better and live together in harmony. As John Lennon said ....

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Each and every audience member gets to choose their individual dream. So take the time to explore the programme brochure and dream along with us.

Thanks to the many artists who have contributed their art, those who have already passed and those working today. Your heart and courage to make work – work that stretches our imaginations, challenges us to think, makes us laugh and brings us to tears – is the most important gift that you can offer us all.

Thank you to all the funders, sponsors and supporters whose generosity lets us bring the work of great artists to audiences across this wonderful city of ours.

Put the dates in your diary 4 - 22 March, read the rest of the programme, let your imagination run wild and book your tickets.

Carla van Zon, Artistic Director
David Inns, Chief Executive
Victoria Carter, Chair