Bringing creativity and collaboration to everything we do in Wellington

Wellington is New Zealand’s creative capital for good reason. Wellingtonians love the arts, culture, and creativity, and the city attracts thinkers, creators and innovators.

Aho Tini 2030 is a bold strategy which will lead us through the next ten years of innovation and creation in our city. It’s one of a number of plans and strategies which will help us to deliver on our 2040 vision for Wellington.

Aho Tini 2030 combines the review of the 2011 Arts and Culture Strategy, together with the original Aho Tini principles (2018), to give a new direction for cultural wellbeing in our city. It will enable Wellingtonians and visitors to explore and experiment with their own creativity.

Tō mātou wawata – tā mātou e kite ai

Our Vision – what we will see

The rich cultural traditions and identity of our capital city inspire our exciting and innovative arts, culture and creativity. Wellingtonians can access and participate in arts and culture, and explore their creativity. Together, in partnership with the arts, culture and creative sectors and with mana whenua and Māori, creativity, collaboration and innovation are woven through everything we do.

Four focus areas will drive our success and help us achieve this vision:

• Aho Tangata/Our people – connected, engaged, inclusive, accessible communities
• Aho Hononga/Partnership with mana whenua and Māori
• Aho Whenua/Our places and spaces – our city is alive
• Aho Mahi/Pathways – successful arts and creative sector, and careers.

Next steps

All Council arts and cultural activities will be aligned to Aho Tini 2030 including programmes, projects, funding and policies. Specific actions to implement the strategy are in the Aho Tini 2030 Action Plan and we will establish benchmarks in the first year to track and evaluate our progress.

Work has already started on the Aho Tini Action Plan. Through the Long-term Plan we have identified $40m for improvements to our extensive venues network, such as improving resilience, fit for purpose and accessibility. We will also be looking at how we can make better use of our other facilities such as community centres. We will report back on this in March 2022.