DONNA DEMENTE ON THE OAMARU RAILWAY STATION A month ago the Oamaru Railway Station was a fully tenanted community arts centre. Over the past decade visual artists (including myself, Kit MacGregor, Tony Gallagher, Karen Aiken, Alison Beavis and a life drawing collective,) musicians (including African drum and dance teacher Ra McCrostie, our Oamaru Ukulele Ensemble, a private recording studio and pipe organ manufactory,) Lavish Soap and the Aoraki Polytechnic Art School have been tenants. This represents an impressive array of cultural practitioners, obviously considered less important than a quick buck to the OWCT, now that the fostering of artists and employment is less important than the “bricks and mortar and never mind what’s behind them” approach of the new mandate. The decision to actively market and sell the station was a hurried one, rushed through prior to the election to appoint new trustees to replace several of those who had resigned. I suspect this was to ensure the agendas of those who supported this were not challenged, but I can’t help but wonder if this was a legally correct decision to make without full quorum. The station was an outright gift to the OWCT because they were seen as the most appropriate civic body to administer it’s preservation and enhancement. This was immediately validated when trust member Jenny Lynch-Blosse took on the role of overseeing its initial restoration and more or less immediately received several significant grants (along with undertaking hundreds of hours of voluntary work with her very talented late husband Gerald.) A member of the trust recently asked me why I didn’t consider purchasing the station. The simple truth is that I don’t have the capital needed to undertake it’s upgrading and feel that it’s longevity is far safer in the hands of an institution that can use the support of cultural practise as leverage to acquire funds, however long it takes, as rent is still coming in which could be used to make gradual improvements. One day such a building will be a very precious asset as rail will surely succeed the motorcar transport system as oil prices soar off the scale. The new owner told several of the tenants that he had no money and was planning to live in the station (a ridiculous concept based on my attempts to sleep there when trains thunder through and shake the building violently several times of a night,) and do all the restoration work by himself. This is a fair indication that he should not be considered an appropriate purchaser by a trust charged with heritage preservation. Shame on them! Sincerely Donna Demente
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 23:18:09 +0000