Culture 101

If you were to speak into an old telephone - what would you say? London-based artist, Joe Bloom has been finding out. A View From A Bridge offers strangers passing by the opportunity to look out onto the water and speak into an old-fashioned chunky red telephone - sharing their inner thoughts, feelings and observations. 

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different region in Aotearoa for the weekly Regional Wrap. This week we’re in Russell - Kororāreka.

As painter Claude Monet's garden and house in Giverny is to France, beloved artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman's garden and house is, in a more contemporary fashion, becoming to England. It's set on the dramatic shingle beach headland of Dungeness in the South East of England, in the shadow of a giant twin nuclear power station.

An Australian sculptor is reclaiming the female form through her woodwork. 

Kaikōura is celebrating 60 years of surfing in a new long-term exhibition at their museum Wharenga - First Wave. Known for whale watching, wildlife and its beautiful coastline, the surfing history of the small town on Te Wai Pounamu’s East Coast hasn’t been as well known or well-documented until now. 

In Kathryn Burnett’s new solo comedy play, Nicola Cheeseman is Back, Nicola is sick of trying to do it all. In an all too familiar situation for those in middle age: she has lost her mojo.   With the guitar, kids and job is the play’s solo star, acclaimed actor Jodie Rimmer. Recently turned 50, with two boys heading into teenagehood, Jodie relates.

It’s not all online: live events are often where we come together as communities, sharing passions and considering the issues concerning us. It’s important they’re accessible to all.  Except they’re not. Many people have impairments that can make it more difficult or impossible to attend live events. Deaf and disability advocates argue in fact it is the society that is creating the disability, not...

A new generation and those who never made it as far as Bluff can now discover this country’s iconic Pāua Shell House in an online virtual tour. 

The Tūrangi Tongariro region, at the spectacular southern end of Lake Tāupo bordering the Volcanic Plateau, is midway between Wellington and Auckland, Napier and New Plymouth and Hamilton and Palmerston North. A popular topping off point, you couldn’t get more central. 

From the ancient oud to the electric axe, the Martin acoustic to the Fender Stratocaster, American National Guitar Museum touring exhibition Medieval to Metal covers a whole lot of stage with 40 guitars. Believe it or not, there’s even an air guitar.   

From hanging out with Daleks and Weeping Angels to the many different iterations of the sonic screwdriver - costumes, props, gadgets and gizmos from the world’s longest running sci-fi series have materialised in Pōneke Wellington as part of exhibition Doctor Who Worlds of Wonders: Where Science Meets Fiction. It’s now at the Tākina events centre. 

A documentary theatre piece is giving the stage to stories held onto for decades. The adoption experiences of birth mothers in the 1950s and 1960s in New Zealand are being heard in I Carried This at the Hannah Playhouse in Pōneke Wellington this June. 

Comedian and writer Lana Walters has won the Billy T Award for 2024, New Zealand’s premiere comedy award. 

Arts news for the 26 May 2024 on Culture 101.

In Pōneke Wellington this week artists, technologists, and critical thinkers have been exploring together questions around machine learning and artificial intelligence. They’ve gathered as part of Rising Algorithms: Navigate, Automate, Dream, a symposium produced by the Aotearoa Digital Arts Network, or ADA for short

Boris Eldagsen became the most notorious artist in the world last year, after winning an award at one of the world's biggest photography competitions with an image entirely generated by AI. 

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different region in Aotearoa for the weekly Regional Wrap. This week we’re in the steampunk capital of the world - Oamaru. 

As global warming continues, many parts of the world including natural wonders and island countries are at risk of damage or disappearing. This has led to a trend of ‘last chance tourism’ where travellers visit areas threatened by climate change - before it’s too late. Ironically, the more tourists visit these areas, the more widespread the climate crisis becomes, which again fuels ‘last chance to...

Te Pou Theatre’s latest offering puts a spotlight on the wāhine factory workers behind the iconic Crown Lynn crockery. 

Gamers with a passion for creative writing can merge their interests in Aotearoa's only creative writing paper dedicated to video games.

Pōneke Wellington based Ebony Lamb has the distinction of having developed two parallel acclaimed careers: as a singer-songwriter and as a photographer. 

Arts news for 19 May 2024

The Auckland Writers Festival has set central Tāmaki Makaurau abuzz this week with a strong lineup of leading local and international authors, panel discussions, and events, including the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.  For more than three days, the festival takes over Aotea Centre and various inner city venues. This year the festival has a brand-new artistic director, Lyndsey Fineran. 

Te Whare Tapere in the Christchurch Arts Centre is neither a European-style gallery or theatre. As a space principally by Māori, for Māori, it is, says co-founder artist Juanita Hepi, “a multidisciplinary, indigenous house of storytelling.” Te Whare Tapere was the name given by Māori before the arrival of the European to such community houses of storytelling, dance, music, puppets, games and other...

You know those embarrassing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings you have you usually keep inside? Pōneke playwright and comedian Viki Moananu uses theatre and comedy to let them out. He calls them ‘Icky’.