Erica Austin

Chief Experience Curator

Combining her knowledge in Architecture; her ability in delivering high level events, conferences and festivals; her creativity in photography; and her experience in the startup ecosystem, Erica Austin is the Founder and Chief Experience Curator at E.A.Curation. She works with non-profit organisations, government agencies, education providers and businesses offering creative solutions to help curate meaningful experiences. Erica’s work life (really just, life) became a mosaic of opportunities to embrace her multiple passions, virtually all of which she threw herself into whole-heartedly. Her career challenged the status-quo by being widespread and highly irregular - often holding many positions at once. At the heart of each of the positions is a firm belief in being true to one’s self, and constantly contributing to a greater purpose.

Background

Erica is interested in how creative disciplines, businesses, community organisations and individuals can work collaboratively.  With a Master’s degree in Architecture, she understands complex systems, how to work with physical spaces and how we can all contribute to shaping our city's future through city-making processes. 

Erica was nearing the end of her Architectural masters degree at the University of Auckland when the Christchurch earthquakes occurred. She moved to Christchurch, following a desire to see the city rebuilt into a vibrant and inclusive place. Erica’s eyes were quickly opened to what her degree could do for others and realised that if not designed from a human-centric perspective, the city could not be shaped to serve its people. She started to develop ideas around creating more meaningful ‘social architecture’, to inform how we build, in order to make sure the physical environment would serve society. Traditional architectural training had given her foundational knowledge, but she also recognised she needed other skills which Christchurch offered the opportunity to learn.

Her Master's Thesis project was focused on creating an Experience Economy for Christchurch and designed an architectural system that acted as catalyst for growth. This opened up various opportunities including working on the first ever Festival of Transitional Architecture FESTA in 2012 and since then, she is a key member at Te Putahi - Centre of Architecture and Citymaking that delivers FESTA biennially. 

Cross-Disciplinary EXPERIENCE

ARCHITECTURE | Graduating with a Masters in Architecture, Erica works with Te Putahi - Centre of Architecture and Citymaking and delivers special projects, public events and Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA). She also works with various communities to design participatory processes unique to them encouraging participation. 

START-UP | As a former Ministry of Awesome staff  (2014-2018) and Startup Weekend Organiser, she is well connected in the entrepreneurial community and understands the journey of startups. She ran over 200 sessions of Coffee and Jam (Ministry of Awesome's most popular networking event) and led numerous programmes for early stage entrepreneurs and schools. Before she left Ministry of Awesome, she was involved in designing and delivering the Canterbury Innovation Ecosystem Map, a free resource for entrepreneurs and innovators at various stages of their journey. She also designed Lab5, a week-long programme, for Year 10 students at Christ’s College. In 2019, Erica took on the role of Programme Manager at Lightning Lab Tourism. This was a three-month business acceleration programme run by CreativeHQ focused on building a sustainable innovation ecosystem for the future of tourism in New Zealand.

PHOTOGRAPHY + DIGITAL STORYTELLING | Erica's photography passion started with architecture and as she slowly immerses herself with community initiatives, she found a new appreciation for capturing moments in space and uses photography as a tool for storytelling. Today she photographs community events, international conferences, weddings, people and more with her husband and co-runs Peanut Productions Photography. With this passion, she joined forces with Digital Storytellers based in Sydney, Australia to deliver Stories for Impact workshops in Aotearoa. These workshops share tools and resources including the Story Canvas to help organisations and individuals doing good to tell their stories more effectively and amplify their impact, without the need for a big budget or expensive equipment.

EVENTS | Erica LOVES creating spaces for conversation and collaboration. She is the Lead City Organiser at PechaKucha Night Christchurch and active organising committee member at TEDxChristchurch, both voluntary roles. She co-organised Women Who Get Sh*t Done Christchurch, curated Christchurch Educated's Region Conference, delivered AASA Architecture Forum, supported Social Enterprise World Forum as an Experience Advisor and involved with SingularityU Summits in both New Zealand and Australia. From community events with 20 people to festivals with over 20,000 people, she's well experienced in designing, curating and delivering events of all shapes and forms. She has recently played the role of Curation and Project Management Lead at Aotearoa’s first Virtual Impact Unconference in 2020.

INCLUSIVE PRACTICE + ALLY SKILLS | Erica is a Ally Skills NZ facilitator. Ally Skills take a data-driven approach to help companies map their current culture and set up systems to foster inclusive, thriving teams. 

Research shows that when teams are more diverse and inclusive, companies are more productive, innovative, and profitable--but it can be hard to measure inclusion or know where to start. That’s why our data-driven insights help companies visualise where the culture challenges are today, and our consulting team works with companies to design systems that encourage inclusivity. We also offer the Ally Skills Workshop, which covers simple, everyday ways that you can use your voice and influence to support marginalised groups in the workplace.

In short, we work with forward-thinking companies to make diversity and inclusion a reality. 

Learn more: allyskills.nz

LEADERSHIP | Erica participated in the first cohort of Leadership in Communities (LinC) Project, a Leadership Lab programme, in 2015. Since then, she joined the team of facilitators to designed a range of programmes supporting thriving leaders to be active in their communities. Leadership Lab operates as a collective with a wide range of individuals teaming up to contribute in a range of projects while also supporting and developing each other in the process. We work together with communities and organisations to tackle complex issues. In 2018, she also took part in the Leading Collaborative Partnerships Course, a University of Canterbury masters paper which looked at case studies of collective impact.

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Our Office - Bizdojo Christchurch, 4 Ash Street
Christchurch Central
8011