Culture 101

The Māniatoto plain, sits high inland in Central Otago bounded by ranges. It's known for its distinct beauty, and climate of extremes: from dry and hot in summer, to snow and temperatures well below zero in winter. 

In Home we follow artist Teiti Nepia as over the summer of 2023 and 2024 for five months she reclaims her own sense of sovereignty by camping out on public land on Wellington's beautiful but rather wild south coast. Nepia calls her project a form of art activism, a positive response to being squeezed out of rental accommodation due to high rentals. 

Although written in 1923 about a story from the 15th century, the themes of Saint Joan continue to be pertinent in the 21st century. George Bernard Shaw's classic, written after the canonisation of Joan of Arc in 1920, looks at morality, nationalism and the concept of individual beliefs versus societal institutions. Flyleaf Theatre Company is currently staging the play at Q Theatre in Auckland, de...

There are small pockets globally where descendants of 19th century immigrants are working to retain the distinctive culture, heritage and language of the small European regions their ancestors came from. They don't come much smaller than the village of Puhoi, north of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. 

Editor of NZ Listener, Kirsty Cameron, got her start in journalist at RNZ and broadcasting before moving into print where she's stayed ever since. She spent more than a decade working in Australia; initially as a feature writer and political reporter before moving in magazines and editing In Style and becoming editor in chief and overseeing several women and home magazines. After moving back to Ne...

A look at the arts scene here & abroad.

A new digital art curation platform is hoping to be bridge the gap between artists and buyers to create personalised, cohesive and curated collections.

2025 marks the centenary of Radio New Zealand. Yet broadcasting is one thing, the technology to hear it another. And there was once an entirely different company called RNZ - pioneer radio manufacturers the Radio Corporation of New Zealand. 

What's at Colac Bay.

Younger audiences are in for a visual feast at Silo's new show Taniwha opening in time for the school holidays. Featuring puppetry, live videography, narration and live music, Taniwha will also feature a rotating cast including the likes of Kura Forrester, Jarod Rawiri and Nicola Kawana. Set on a building site in a small Aotearoa town, something ancient begins to stir as developers close in. Merea...

Tessa Mitchell never knew her grandfather but he has cast a long shadow. Her film I Am a Dark River is about Bob Lowry - that creative and some would say sometimes outrageous grandfather. It's been released this month for you to watch on the RNZ website after premiering last year at the New Zealand International Film Festival. 

Romance novels are having a moment. England's first ever romance-only bookshop opened this week in Notting Hill, London.

Arts news for 15 June 2025.

Located in the centre of the Pacific, Tahiti's closest large land mass is Aotearoa New Zealand. It is where, from Raiatea, Maori migration canoes left in what is thought to be the late 13th Century or early 14th Century. Tahitian novelist Titaua Peu has for the last four months been French writer in residence at Randell Cottage in Poneke Wellington. 

Multi-disciplinary artist Julia Holden is better known for her live performance art, clay work and animated paintings so when she started painting pets and animals, it wasn't a turn she saw coming.

A gateway to Tairawhiti East Cape from the north is the town of Ōpōtiki in the Bay of Plenty. As a creative hub local organisation Ōpōtiki Arts has a new leash of life with this year 95 members in their ranks, and since 1977 they've owned their own premises, a historic 1898 hall. 

In the new feature film Koka an elder Maori woman, under the celestial guidance of Matariki, makes a long journey home in a car that's seen better days. For Koka's director, Kath Akuhata-Brown of Ngati Porou, this has also been a long journey - to make a film on her own terms. 

Good Bitches are still baking across the country and the collective has just released its third cookbook Familiar Foods. But it's not the classics you may be imagining but rather family recipes; some of which have been in the family for generations. 

Te Ahu a Turanga is a new $824 million 11.5-kilometre four-lane highway connecting the Lower North Island East to West. It opened this week. it is, in effect an enormous sculpture park you can drive through. Through art, design, pattern and planting it places a cloak across the land, including references in sculpture to instruments of weaving.

To celebrate Matariki, singer-songwriter, TV presenter and political candidate Ria Hall will be on stage with the Auckand Philharmonia to present a night of epic anthems. Her self-titled EP won Best Māori album at the music awards in 2012, blending hip hop beats with rich layers of Te Reo and English. She has since released two more albums; Rules of Engagement and Manawa Wera and has collaborated...

Does an underground still exist? Or is it just one more consumer choice in an ever growing banquet of ticketed events? Testing this may be Tamaki Makarau's biennial Festival of Live Arts (FOLA), at the Basement Theatre from June 11 to 15. 

Each week Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of the country and we're going a bit more suburban this week to West Auckland - and the suburb of Titirangi. Close to the Waitakere Ranges and beaches nearby, the village is surrounded by lush greenery. With scenic reserves, the area became a tourist destination on the fringes of Tamaki Makaurau. Local and filmmaker Robin Kewell joins Cu...

Award-winning UK festival Focus Wales celebrates emerging talent and artists. The festival which has been running for 15 years saw more than 22 thousand attendees, showcased 250 artists across 20 stages in various venues around Wrexham.

This month welcomes two contemporary indigenous performing arts festivals which have established themselves as cornerstones of the presentation of new work from Aotearoa and across the Pacific. 

A new digital whodunnit comedy series puts the spotlight on the dangers and growing epidemic of image-based abuse and bullying. Inspired by millennial television shows like Gossip Girl, The Sender is based around a group of prefects who have a final night of debauchery at a bach before taking on their roles and responsibilities in their final year of school. But as the night unravels, anonymous me...