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Chromacon burst onto the creative scene in 2013 as a festival to showcase NZ illustrators and artists. Two years on the event has expanded in both scope and mode of delivery, with a feast of events – exhibitions, workshops, convention and talks on offer.  It’s all mostly free too. Renee Liang talks to founder Allan Xia.

What did you learn from Chromacon 2013?

That there is indeed a huge public interest for original New Zealand art, stories and imaginative worlds.
After the amazing response we received from artists and visitors alike, I realised what began as a passion project truly has great potential to empower our creative community. 

What's different about this year's event?

More diversity and a higher level of professionalism. In 2013 our tagline was originally 'Illustration & Comic Arts Festival", which fit at the time as it reflected the majority of our exhibitors.  We've since updated to 'New Zealand Indie Arts Festival'.  The main aim of this is to emphasise the most important aspect of Chromacon - the spirit of creative independence.  Furthermore, we wish to reach out to creatives working in many other artistic disciplines - to join us and cross pollinate new exciting ideas. 

Finally, equally important is what hasn't changed - we're still sticking to our roots and remaining loyal to our Kaupapa of building a free, grassroots hub for NZ indie artists to connect with the wider community.

Has the landscape for NZ-based visual artists changed much in the last two years?

I wouldn't say dramatically, but most of us are still working hard on our craft, so with the addition of new emerging artists, the community has definitely grown.  With the boom of social media and many creative events happening all over the country we're also more interconnected than ever before.  Quite a few creatives have also successfully gone fully independent with their own projects/brands/original IP by tapping into the power of online digital distribution and the support of crowdfunding platforms, so it's exciting times!

What are some of the success stories from Chromacon 2013?

While Chromacon certainly can't take credit for all of the following, here are just some of the amazing successes from Chromacon 2013 Exhibitors:

Adrian Kinnaird's From Earth's End: The Best of New Zealand Comics was published to great success. Adrian has also teamed up with Damon Keen and Kelly Sheehan to form Earth's End Publishing - a new boutique publishing house, aimed at bringing into print comics and graphic novels by some of New Zealand’s best cartoonists.  For their first project, they successfully Kickstarter-funded a beautiful reprint of Ant Sang's classic graphic novel The Dharma Punks (out of print for over a decade).

Damon Keen founder of Faction Comics anthology has also successfully published the second volume of Faction as well as a new special climate change issue - launching this week!

Ben Stenbeck is collaborating with comics artist/author powerhouse Mike Mignola's new mini-series Frankenstein Underground. 

Mukpuddy announced The Barefoot Bandits, their very own animated TV series.

Henry Christian-Slane won the prestigious Adam Portraiture Award - the youngest winner at age 23.

Gregor Czaykowski of Loading Artist has recently gone full-time independent to work on the webcomic full time through hard work and support of crowdfunding platform Patreon.

Chromacon 2013 comics panel speaker Li Chen has since published the third volume of her wonderful webcomic Extra Ordinary Comics, and will be joining us at Chromacon this year as an exhibitor.

These are just a few of the examples I thought of off the top of my head! I'm sure every artist has found successes and growth since the last festival.  Of course, I feel Chromacon was a great personal success - being awarded a placement on the prestigious Creative Entrepreneur acceleration programme ART Venture was certainly reflective of that.

You've expanded from one day to two days - why?

We simply had too many amazing exhibitors and events this year to not go the extra mile!  Many creatives have accumulated an incredible body of work since Chromacon 2013 and we really wanted to give everyone the best opportunity possible to showcase their work to the wider public.

How did you choose and approach your overseas guests?  How do you think they'll contribute to the local scene?

Creative and cultural diversity were two key areas we took into account. 

Long time fans of their work, I visited and caught up with Benjamin - internationally prolific Manhua (Chinese comics) artist and author as well as Wenna - an amazing fine artist who creates 'living murals' all over the world.

They both have a lot of previous experience with international cultural and creative exchange, and are perfect to bridge NZ and China's creative communities.

We also invited Jacky Ke Jiang as he has worked on some of the biggest animated blockbusters today at Disney (Frozen/ Wreck it Ralph etc). Yet he's still able to cross boundaries to much smaller in budget but equally acclaimed indie projects such as the multiple BAFTA award-winning indie game Journey.  He even animated nearly a full episode of Adventure Time by himself!  All of this is because his own creative voice is able to shine through on all those projects. Jacky represents the prefect example of a modern multi-disciplinary creative and would be a great role-model for all indie artists in our local community.

Finally, we were able to invite the amazing illustrator and fine artist J.A.W. Cooper through the support of Takapuna Arts Supplies - a local store run by artists for artists.  The co-owner Jim Auckland - a prolific illustrator, fine artist and educator from US himself, was actually previously Cooper's teacher at Otis College of Art and Design.  Cooper has achieved amazing success as a fine artist at a very young age, and she's able to find a very good balance between art directing for advertising and creating her own personal work.  She really has a lot to share with kiwi illustrators striving to make their own personal creative voice be heard.

It's great to see that you've introduced an industry forum with Chroma Connect. What are your main aims for this event? How might it grow in the future?

As I previously mentioned, Chromacon's international guests this year all have a lot to share and contribute to our local creative community. Further, Chromacon is a gathering of some of the best creative minds here in New Zealand.  With Chroma Connect, we aim to take advantage of such a rare opportunity to encourage more cross pollination of innovative ideas, and provide a meaningful educational experience for emerging and professional artists alike.

We hope Chroma Connect will help to support Chromacon arts festival continue to remain free for the wider community, and also act as a platform for us to bridge more international cultural and creative exchange.

Tell me about the Lightning Sessions.

Lightning Sessions is another new initiative of ours still very much in 'pilot' stages at the moment.  The idea is simple, thought-provoking quick-fire organic conversations from inspirational minds. The most exciting aspect is that we hope to partner and co-curate with other organisations/ collectives etc, to really build inspiring experiences that offer very fresh perspectives.

Tell me about your organising team. How are you planning for the longevity of this event?

This year I've partnered with WhySquare Ltd, who specialises boutique governance, arts & technology consultancy + management.  Our festival producer Sumathi Selvarajan (ART Venture 2015 Awardee) and festival co-ordinator Beatrice Lo have simply been invaluable for the organisation and delivery of Chromacon 2015 - especially at the scale of the festival this year.

We are currently in the process of registering a Charitable Trust to properly manage Chromacon as a non-profit arts festival and to continue building proper governance structures for the future.

I see you now have an Awards event with some high stakes prizes?

Indeed! Chroma Art Awards is an evolution of our art competition from Chromacon 2013, the categories are still the same, and it's still open entry, but we wish to really properly acknowledge the quality of the participants.  We have support of many amazing sponsors for the awards, including: The Wallace Arts Trust, The Online Printer, Takapuna Arts Supplies, Chameleon Pens, Art Rage, Faber-Castell, Giesen Wines, Karma Cola, Goodbuzz Brewing Co and Garage Project - all incredible patrons of the arts.
Furthermore, Wallace Arts Trust will also be judging as well as potentially purchasing finalists works to join one of New Zealand’s foremost contemporary art collections.

Will Chromacon be a yearly event from now on?

At the moment, we're sticking to a biennial format as we work solving the same issues our indie creatives face - achieving self-sustainability and creative independence.

• Chromacon is on 18-19 April at Aotea Centre, Auckland