The Awhi Incubator Story
AwhiWorld have worked hard over the last five years to support Te Tai Tokerau’s creative technology and cross-disciplinary arts scene.
Both Dr Maggie Buxton and Kim Newall have dedicated a considerable amount of volunteer time and personal resources to raising the profile of this sector.
Many individuals work in some form of creative practice, either remotely for large companies, as freelancers with portfolio lifestyles or as creatives working either full-time or tending a side hustle for extra income.
Recognising this, Maggie (together with Matt Keene from Saas Digital) founded Creative Technology Northland, a thriving networking organisation to support and showcase this sector and bring more work to our region. In supporting creative innovation, AwhiWorld directly supports the regional economy.


Workshops and Training
Between them, Maggie and Kim have 46 years of combined experience in mentoring, education and facilitation – including creating Master’s level curricula and supporting interarts creatives from diverse backgrounds. Helping people and places develop and thrive is core to both their community based practices.
Since arriving in Northland, they have delivered many learning events, including talks, seminars, panels and meetups.
The Awhi Incubator will hold a number of workshops throughout the project’s life ranging from technology to more practice-oriented topics like funding and marketing.
Innovation Labs
Extensive experience producing creative innovation labs in Northland was one of the core impulses behind the Awhi Incubator.
Seeing the power of people working together creatively from across different realities – and the amazing outcomes that result gave AwhiWorld the motivation to build this work on a larger scale.
The labs have a strong environmental focus, supporting research in science, engineering, art, design and social sciences.
The Awhi Incubator will hold two large labs throughout the project time, the first one in May/June of 2023.


For the love of place
AwhiWorld has extensive experience working in interarts and cross-disciplinary practice. The core organisational focus is on supporting the spirit and spirits of place. It is essentially a community based creative studio.
Dr Maggie Buxton’s PhD was focused on the Spirit of Place and Augmented Reality Mobile, and she has almost 30 years of working in various forms of development.
Kim Newall is a lifelong multi-disciplinary creative who has worked extensively to support other artists as a core part of his practice.
Together they have created numerous installations and capacity-building projects in South Auckland and Northland that support people and the places they love.
The Awhi Incubator aims to generate more place-based practice across the region, with emerging projects that support cultural education, community cohesion, environmental behaviour change and citizen research. All with a cross-disciplinary creative base.
Manatū Taonga – The Funding Journey
Early in 2021, AwhiWorld attended a presentation informing the Northland Art Community about the newly launched Innovation Fund.
After many delays due to COVID we finally submitted an application in June 2022, having worked hard over the year developing the idea of the Awhi Incubator.
We were told we were successful in September and then officially started the programme, 1 February 2023 after a very busy few months tidying up our other work.
AwhiWorld are extremely grateful to be given this opportunity and also feel that all our hard work in this area has been recognised. It is now time to take our mahi to another level!

PROJECT EXAMPLES
From co-curating exhibitions to running capacity building workshops, AwhiWorld has worked hard to support other creatives and showcase the amazing talent our region has to offer.