Opening of new Christchurch Art Gallery

Saturday 10 May 2003

It is very rare to feel the hand of history on your shoulders. This is one of those rare days. Truly historic for Christchurch today and in the future. Each generation gets to leave some mark for their tipuna. This is ours.

It is a timely and wonderful gift to the present and the future and to our duty to them and to the past.

Last year I got some of the kids at Christchurch East School to do the Christmas cards I send out each December. A while ago I went back to the school to thank them with some chocolates.

I asked them in passing who in the class considered themselves an artist. Every child put their hand up. The flame was still alive.

This new Gallery will help us keep that creative flame alive for our young. It also literally shows the glory of the creative flame that has burned amongst us in Christchurch.

It does this by bringing into the glory of the light, works like Phil Clairmont’s astounding fireplace. This work is so powerful and profound it had no space to honour it before. Now it has.

It burns with the same glory as the implacable vision of his friend Tony Fomison, who is another former Christchurch genius we are finally able to accord due honour.

It is a common and glorious story you will see again and again within these walls.

Today is also a day that marks the full maturity of Christchurch as a major metropolitan city. If Cathedral Square is our heart, this Gallery is our soul.
This gallery also carries into a new Century the flame of generosity and vision that has burned brightly through the life of this city. We have done well with foresight.

We have Hagley Park, the Museum, the old University now the Arts Centre, and now this the wonder of our times.

A huge central city area devoted to the glory of art, culture and the wonders of nature. It is a legacy of massive inter-generational generosity.

Today we are not just putting the arts in Christchurch on mainstreet. We are not just holding the hand of history to admire the most major public work of our lives.

We are also unveiling one of the largest cultural precincts for an inner city area that you will find anywhere.

It marks not only our maturity as a city, but a renewal of our commitment to making the arts an experience, open and available to all our people.
This is both a treasure house of artistic taonga and a huge catalyst for creativity. I predict that whole tidal waves of creative energy will be unleashed by this building.

It has the wow factor to a level I have never seen before in an art gallery.

It is the new jewel in the crown of Christchurch and it is totally fitting at this point that the hand of history be lifted from my shoulders and placed on those of our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark.

It is opportune and right that we can celebrate this occasion with our Prime Minister who has been historic in her open and total commitment to the arts as a major force in our society.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Prime Minister.