Creating website pages to showcase New Zealand’s creative relationships with Latin America
Latin America Centre of Asia–Pacific Excellence (Latam CAPE) was set up in 2017 to enhance New Zealand’s engagement with countries in Latin America. Using high-quality research, and academic and industry expertise, it offers New Zealanders education, knowledge and resources to help them connect and engage with Latin America.
New Zealanders are unaware how much creative work is already happening with Latin America
The Latam CAPE knew that many New Zealanders were unaware of the wealth of creative relationships that exist between artists at home and in Latin American countries. Nicole Freeman – a programme manager at Latam CAPE – asked me to help tell the amazing stories of these projects and artists and give New Zealanders the chance to learn about them.
Latam CAPE had a lot of material about projects and artists to write about
Nicole and her colleagues had amassed material about lots of different creative projects – from art exhibitions through to poetry festivals – artists and creative institutions that had worked together or formed longstanding creative relationships. They also had a long list of referred artists and projects they wanted to discover more about.
The material they had was patchy and inconsistent
When I got involved with the project, the team had already engaged a website designer, created a framework for the website they wanted to build, and had an idea of when they wanted to launch it. They had generated interest in the website, and information about projects and artists was starting to flow in. However, the material they had was patchy and inconsistent, and wouldn’t easily transfer onto the website.
We used templates to create consistent web content that visitors could easily interact with
My first step was creating three templates for the webpages I would write on projects, artists and creative institutions. Having templates made the team’s job much easier – they knew exactly which information they needed to find out for each page. Having templates also ensured that I wrote and presented content consistently, which would make it easy for visitors to interact with the information and find what they were looking for.
It was amazing to see our raw interview responses transformed into clear, engaging and cohesive content that resonated with the featured artists and our target audience.
Nicole Freeman, Latam CAPE
By writing and editing over 100 webpages, I helped Latam CAPE launch an accurate and consistent website
Using the templates, I drafted over 100 webpages, as the research team sent through material they gained from interviews and online research. The range of topics was vast and fascinating, from a Mexican food festival in New Zealand through to a New Zealand-designed virtual reality app that teaches Chileans about sustainable fishing. Each page went through several drafts, and the entire set was proofread by Caroline Simpson at Proofreaders Plus, to ensure every aspect of the content and layout was accurate and consistent.
Creative Collaborations is a unique repository of information about contemporary and historical creative work
Creative Collaborations was launched in Auckland and Wellington in November 2023, and attracted around 17,000 views in the first month. The visually stunning website allows visitors to search and view material by country or creative theme (heritage, arts, media and design). By clicking on a particular project, visitors can read about the project, visit its own website, and access a range of other multimedia resources about it. The website is also a unique repository of information about contemporary and historical creative collaborations between New Zealanders and Latin Americans.
The response to Creative Collaborations has been deeply rewarding. Since the site launched, a major regional institution and several individuals have told us it has inspired them to explore projects that celebrate the contributions Latin American communities make in Aotearoa. It’s already igniting powerful conversations, new relationships and meaningful collaboration.
Nicole Freeman, Latam CAPE
