Culture 101

Just a glimpse of Guo Pei’s magnificent gowns reveal her vivid imagination. 

In former government minister Chris Finlayson’s 2022 book Yes Minister he wrote that “The primary responsibility of a National minister for arts, culture and heritage, is to keep the luvvies at bay and stop them complaining.” So what does the new National minister for arts, culture and heritage, Paul Goldsmith think?

On the brink of collapse - that’s the stark portrayal of the state of the arts media in a new report New Mirrors, commissioned by Creative New Zealand.

In Koe Tau’atāina o e Leitī  (The Freedom/ Emancipation of the Leitī), Tongan New Zealand artist Manuaha’apai Vaeatangitau (or Manu Vaea for short) deals in “radical honesty” about her experiences as a fakaleitī or Tongan third gender person. 

In 2021 artist Isabella Loudon returned to her family home in the town of Marton Tutaenui in the lower North Island to recover from glandular fever. Loudon has since stayed on, making the most of a vacant commercial building owned by her parents as studio space. The building is due to be demolished, so she’s been busy turning it into one giant installation project to create what is being dubbed an...

Raro Research Collective's passion for earth pigments

The buiniga is a traditional Fijian unisex hairstyle. Similar to the afro, but more sculpted, it’s become a source of national pride. Increasingly young women in Fiji are bucking Western trends and refusing to straighten their hair.   Fijian born and raised, artist, poet and fashion designer Natasha Ratuva’s exhibition at  Aratoi museum in Masterton is called Buiniga, named after the  iTaukei (Ind...

A New Zealand jeweller has won big at the XIV Florence Biennale Exhibition and Awards, taking first prize for Jewellery Art and Design.

Actor and star of The Brokenwood Mysteries Fern Sutherland has just wrapped her 10th season on the television detective drama. A feat for any show in New Zealand to last this long.

The black stilt or kakī is one of the world's most endangered birds. It is central to the latest work of Kāi Tahu Otepoti artist Madison Kelly’s new work in a major exhibition Spring Time is Heartbreak: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa just opened at Christchurch Art Gallery.  

Arts news this week as read on the show.

On the back cover of his recently published first book of poems, Crackle in the Rain, Ciaran Fox describes himself as a whisky-chasing sensualist, poet, father and born-again skateboarder.  He is also an ardent supporter of emerging writers: a regular co-host of Poetry Slam and a cofounder of the long-running open mic night and literary journal Catalyst, now in its 21st year. 

Prayas Theater is bringing the masterpiece, The Clay Cart or Mricchakatika to stage in an adaptation for modern audiences.

A panel with Michael Bell, Steph Walker and Kiri Jarden. It’s almost 13 years since the devastating earthquake of 22 February 2011, which forced 70 percent of the Ōtautahi Christchurch CBD to be demolished. While the rebuild has been a slow and often difficult process in visions meeting reality, there is also much to celebrate in the city taking up the opportunity, through art and design, to remak...

Whether you like it or not, the age of AI is here.  In his latest exhibition Legacy, photographer Jon Carapiet uses AI technology to reanimate current well known and powerful figures, creating the sense of a time machine. 

Artist Pia Hill was four when she held her first group exhibition as a curator, in her bedroom. The Bat Show raised hundreds of dollars towards these endangered species conservation.  Now, aged eight, Pia Hill’s second show as curator, Pūrākau has been held this weekend at Toi Auaha, a new inner city studio space for artists in central Ōtautahi. The exhibition featured work by a range of artists a...

It’s the end of an era. A Snort era. What was supposed to be one month, became one decade. The weekly improv comedy show in Tamaki Makaurau which quickly became a cult hit and drew in the crowds to The Basement every Friday night, has come to an end. 

Dr Huhana Smith (Ngāti Tukorehe) was the first graduate from Toioho ki Apiti with a Bachelor of Māori Visual Arts in 1998. She now holds a PhD in Māori studies. 

Living in the Kāpiti Coast town of Ōtaki, where he runs a gallery and shop with his wife Mia Brennan, Hohepa 'Hori' Thompson says his art and expressions are his way of “decolonising himself”, a journey that is still on-going. 

Culture 101 Arts News: November 19 2023

Marcus McShane’s latest experiment is to employ his cargo bike as a mobile video projection unit, screening commissioned audiovisual animation onto the upper floors of Cuba Street buildings as he cycles along, with the film designed to work in rhythm with his bike.

It is 50 years since The Rocky Horror Show premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London. 

The NZSO will accompany an 80-strong choir this week in a celebration of Pasifika music, combining symphony with songs from the Pacific.

Dr Rebecca Rice, Curator in Historical New Zealand Art has been rethinking Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonial visual culture, and her current research focuses on nineteenth-century female botanical artists, who arguably have not had the attention they deserve. Working between the fields of art and science, Rice says their work often sought to interest a wider public in the burgeoning field of botany,...

There are many books about lighthouse keepers. And many iconic images of lighthouses on our coastline. Yet the lighthouse keeper was pretty much made extinct in the 1970s in New Zealand when lighthouses became automated.  In Adrienne Jansen’s sixth novel, Light Keeping, the work and home of the lighthouse keeper is brought back to life.  Giving voice to others, through writing and publishing oppor...