Culture 101

The 34th season of the World of Wearable Art has kicked off in the capital - an annual spectacle of fashion, art, circus, dance and music.  This year’s theme is Dream Awake, and the competition has 91 finalists from 15 countries.  Joining Culture 101 to discuss the spectacle of WOW is Stuff arts journalist Andre Chumko and theatre maker and writer for Wellingtonista, Emma Maguire. 

The beautiful Rangitikei region - running alongside the river of the same name from the Manawatu to Ruapehu - is better known as a place depicted by artists than for its arts scene.  It’s famous as the rural landscape depicted by painter Peter McIntyre in the mid 20th century.  One notable recent initiative however, is bringing contemporary artists to the region. Laura and Richard Morrison own a s...

This week, artist Jefferson Chen, also known as Goodspace, is paying homage to Lim Chhour's legacy and the hardworking vendors by launching his debut album, Let's Talk About Death, with a multi-media installation Vendor. 

Artist Ana Iti has been awarded Aotearoa New Zealand’s most prestigious art award, the Walters Prize at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her sculpture and sound installation ‘A resilient heart like the mānawa’ is on display at the gallery.   Like the UK’s Turner Prize, The Walters Prize 2024 has four finalists in exhibition, chosen by a jury.  Yet, while that same jury awards the final Prize to...

Hawkes Bay theatre maker Kristyl Neho (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahungunu) grew up with more death around her than most people.

The Capital’s Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon has long championed Pōneke Wellington - it’s local businesses, its fashion and, sometimes more controversially, its bike lanes.

Arts News: Parekowhai's controversial giant kangaroo, Te Unua Museum of Southland's cost blowout and extinct animal discovered in rock art.

Has joy ever been such a crucial visible part of art as it is in the work of crochet extraordinaires Lissy and Rudi Robinson-Cole? The married couple are on a mission to bring light, warmth and Te Ao Māori to all of Aotearoa New Zealand with their electrically colourful woollen work. 

Maurice and I is an unexpectedly moving, delightful, at times harrowing look at the enduring partnership between architects Sir Miles Warren and Maurice Mahoney and the creation and saving of the iconic Christchurch Town Hall.

Each week Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different region in Aotearoa. This week we’re in the port town of Lyttelton near Ōtautahi Christchurch. 

So fearless is composer Eve De Castro Robinson that not only did she recently give a seminar entitled ‘Being Fearless’ but, now in her 60s, she recently tried doing stand-up comedy for the first time.  Not typical for a composer, yet Robinson has always been bold in working with others and across artforms. She ascribes to composer John Cage’s view: “Get out of whatever cage you’re in.” 

Independent, trailblazing alternative pop artist Theia has released a new musical anthem. Staunchly proud of being a wahine Māori artist, her whakapapa (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Tīpā) and her language, latest single Baldh3ad focuses on the “plague of colonisation”, with a direct address to the current government. 

Kirsty Webeck is one of Australia’s busiest comedians. But her path into comedy was anything but conventional.

With style and cinematic verve, if there was ever an Aotearoa artist to be dubbed disco queen it would be Lisa Reihana. Disco because her latest commissioned work on the rooftop of the National Gallery of Singapore, Glisten moves with sequins and sound.  114,000 shimmer discs dazzle in the warm breeze, complete with a soundscape. They make up patterns inspired by Southeast Asian Songket and Māori...

He's reached that stage of getting called a legend of the underground and certainly, Bill Direen is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most singular, long serving and distinctive poets and musicians. His career began in the fertile music and theatre scene of Ōtautahi Christchurch in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.  Forming the group The Bilders (for which he has been sole constant, with a fascinating ros...

An area of Aotearoa New Zealand arts getting major global reach right now is music and sound for film.  Culture 101 brought together three composers and musicians making inroads in this field to talk about how they make the remarkable work they do: Moniker’s Sam Flynn Scott, Lachlan Anderson and Stephen Gallagher.   The reach doesn’t get much bigger. August saw the debut of the animated feature Sa...

A gateway to Te Wai Pounamu and the Marlborough Sounds, Picton has the capacity to surprise travellers with the range of cultural experiences on offer.  It’s the destination for this week’s Culture 101 Regional Wrap.   Barbara Speedy is the Director of The Diversion Gallery, situated on the picturesque waterfront. 

What is the secret to designing a great kitchen? Many of us may think we have the answers, but reality can throw up plenty of challenges.  

550 migrants or their advocates laid complaints last month. It comes as less than 2000 overseas workers arrive. Meanwhile Immigration New Zealand reports they have revoked the accreditation of 500 employers. For 200 years this has been a land of immigrants, welcoming successive waves of peoples and their cultures.  We, the Outsiders is a documentary theatre piece created and inspired by migrant wo...

A new show by dance group Company B is giving emerging choreographers a creative platform, and mentoring and training 10 young dancers.

Maori-Samoan RnB artist Jordyn Rapana - also known as Jordyn with a Why is on a roll.

You may have heard the phrase ‘triple threat’ in the arts, but Petmal Petelo is perhaps a quadruple threat. A dancer, actor, stage manager and assistant director she’s been steadily rising in the theatre world. 

The Ōtepoti arts scene has long had a gloriously independent fertile, multi-generational, cross art form approach. But is that culture - once famously dubbed the Dunedin Sound - under threat?  Many creatives are concerned. They came of age in the city from the 1980s through to the 2010s, and cite factors like increased rents and noise control provisions as practical threats to space for the city’s...

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of Aotearoa. This week, we’re in Feilding in Manawatū as the town celebrates 150 years. 

Kōanga Festival in Tāmaki Makaurau is celebrating 10 years with a packed three-and-a-half week programme and more than 12 events.