Culture 101

Illustrator Scarlett Robinson-Kean and dancer Sefa Tunupopo are two of the 16 early-career artists selected for this year's Arts Foundation Springboard, each receiving $15,000 and a mentorship. Scarlett, whose graphic novel To Seed, To Sprout, To Seed won a bronze at last year's Best Design Awards, says in illustration the doors don't just stay closed, they often don't exist. Sefa, who leads Welli...

Michelle Langstone reviews three films from this year's French Film Festival: A Dash of Love, a charming road trip about two friends with physical disabilities searching for intimacy, aided by a reluctant ex-con turned driver; Case 137, a gripping thriller about a police investigator probing alleged brutality during the 2018 Yellow Jacket protests in Paris, winner of best actress at the Césars; an...

Named after John Clarke's Fred Dagg, the Fred Award recognises the New Zealand Comedy Festival's best show. David Correos took home the 2026 award, and the iconic Golden Gumboot, for his show Touching My Active Mind. He joins Culture 101 fresh from the win.

Denzel Panama has been given a Pasifika conducting internship by Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand, working alongside the directors of the National Youth Choir, the Academy Choir and Voices New Zealand, of which he is already a member. From Niue, he currently directs senior school choirs at St Kentigern and St Cuthbert's colleges. He joins Culture 101 to talk about the physical art of conducting, why a...

Jennie Skulander has spent more than two decades as the lead vocalist of Devilskin, one of New Zealand's most successful metal acts, but she has never had a singing lesson. Come Together, a supergroup of New Zealand rock musicians, is performing Born to Run in full at Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland this week, and Jennie is on lead vocals. She joins Culture 101 to talk about stepping into so...

Joel Vinsen took out this year's Billy T Award for best newcomer in Aotearoa comedy with his show Renaissance Man, joining a list of previous winners including Rose Matafeo, Paul Ego and Dai Henwood. He joins Culture 101 live for Fast Favourites, sharing picks including a YouTube deep dive into Harmony Korine's late show appearances, a Korean book of short stories, and why Swordsman Chinese in the...

Te Ara Minhinnick is a Maori artist from Waiuku, descended from Ngati Te Ata, whose practice begins with gathering uku, sand and soil from the waterways of her rohe and asking what histories those materials carry. She's one of eight emerging artists, curators and writers selected for Learning from Venice, a programme funded by Naveya & Sloane giving Aotearoa creatives the chance to experience the...

Jenny Scown spent years as a magazine photographer in Auckland before moving back to the Waikato to have "country kids". She built a purpose-built gallery on the family farm outside Tamahere, near Hamilton, with views across to the Waikato River and Sanctuary Mountain, eight minutes from Cambridge. Perlina paid a visit to find out how you build a destination gallery in the middle of a paddock, and...

Artsenta, the Otepoti Dunedin creative space supporting people experiencing mental health and addiction challenges, turns 40 on 17 June. To mark the occasion, it's hosting a symposium on creativity and wellbeing in October and is seeking expressions of interest for presentations. The EOI deadline is 31 May. Director Paul McLellan-Smith joins Culture 101 to talk about four decades of work.

Amanda Nguyen was sexually assaulted while at Harvard, then discovered her rape kit would be destroyed in six months unless she filed for an extension. Blinded by rage, she emailed everyone she knew and built a team that passed the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights through the US Congress unanimously, signed into law by Barack Obama. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, named Time Wom...

The call came in on a Wellington number. Self-taught Auckland artist Duncan Pepe Long knew he should probably call back. He was asked to sit down, told he'd won Aotearoa's most prestigious portraiture award, and then had to go and stand in front of 25 students and pretend nothing had happened. His winning portrait is of Solomon Tamehana, a close friend of nearly 30 years, painted with a ring light...

Ana Scotney is currently starring in Playfight at Silo Theatre. Written by British playwright Julia Grogan in the aftermath of the Grace Millane trial, follows three teenage girls navigating sex, shame and identity, and is the first time the Edinburgh Festival hit has been staged outside the UK. Ana joins Culture 101 for Fast Favourites, sharing the local films she thinks everyone should see right...

After appearing in RNZ's story on rural cinemas, Tamasin Prince joins Culture 101 to talk about what's driving booming audiences in small-town New Zealand.

The Venice Biennale jury resigned two weeks ago after announcing they wouldn't award prizes to countries whose governments have been charged with crimes against humanity by the ICC. The biennale has since moved to an anonymous public vote, with winners to be announced in November instead of this month. Russia is participating for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, prompting protests fro...

Actor and comedian Karen O'Leary joins Culture 101 ahead of her appearance at Poneke House Party, in Wellington.

New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist Richard Lewer has won Australia's most prestigious portrait prize, the Archibald, for his life-sized painting of fellow artist Iluwanti Ken, painted on country in 46-degree heat in the APY Lands.

Dame Gaylene Preston failed her art school degree. The F appeared in the paper the morning results were published. What followed was a move to Cambridge with her husband, a job as assistant librarian at a 900-bed psychiatric hospital, and the discovery that film could give institutionalised patients a voice and a way to prepare for the terrifying prospect of being released into a world that wasn't...

Tamar Torrence is three years into a PhD in neuroaesthetics at the University of Auckland, studying what happens neurologically when people have peak experiences with art.

Perlina wanders through the Hamilton Gardens with director Lucy Ryan where she explains that the gardens' founder, Peter Sergel, designed all 30 gardens before a single one was built.

Kate Rodger joins Culture 101 with reviews of The Weed Eaters and Devil Wears Prada 2.

Nigel McCulloch grew up in Rotorua with a garage full of VHS tapes, courtesy of his father's video delivery business. He never connected that upbringing to his career until recently.

Morgana O'Reilly's one-woman show Stories About My Body started as an idea she half-jokingly pitched to a friend: run onstage topless, read from a 1998 form two diary about hating her body, tell the story of working fetish parties in New York to fund an airfare home, and show her birth video.

Poet Carin Smeaton didn't plan a trilogy. She started writing Hibiscus Tart for her sister, then Death Goddess for her mother, then Age of Orpah for her Arab niece, with one eye on what was happening in Lebanon and Gaza.

Karl Puschmann joins Culture 101 with his television and streaming picks for May, including New Zealand Spy on TVNZ+, Jazz Thornton's story Stalked on Sky Open, and BBC crime drama Mint.

Hastings Art Gallery launched a free art bus for schools last November, providing transport for students from Hastings, Napier and Central Hawke's Bay to visit the gallery, with priority given to high-equity and rural schools and those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Hundreds of students have already visited. The Gallery's audience and Learning Manager Elham Salari joins Culture 101 to talk about w...