Culture 101

Joining Mark Amery and Perlina Lau on Culture 101 to consider the year that was and pick some cultural highlights are Erin Harrington in Ōtautahi Christchurch, André Chumko and Sarah Laing in Poneke Wellington and Sam Brooks and Gemma Gracewood in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

As the summer break starts, many New Zealanders will be heading to the warmer climes of Te Tai Tokerau Northland and a town known for its arts, culture and heritage: Kerikeri.  Culture 101’s Mark Amery is joined by Kerikeri based RNZ journalist Peter De Graaf for this week’s Regional Wrap.

The phenomenon and history of folk horror has been explored in a new documentary, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (2021) screening at City Gallery Wellington. A sub-genre of horror, folk horror is described in the film as “prosaic meets uncanny”. A common theme is connection to the land, returning to the roots and cultures which have been sustained in spite of a dominant culture that’s progresse...

Actor, director, producer and writer, Tainui Tukiwaho (Te Arawa, Tūhoe) is the recent winner of the 2023 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Known for roles on Step Dave and having taken on portraying legendary comedian, Billy T James for telemovie, Billy, Tukiwaho has taken home $10,000, to encourage his writing for theatre.

When we talk about the pioneering generation of modern Māori artists, the names most typically heard are men: Ralph Hotere, Sandy Adsett, Selwyn Wilson, Muru Walters or Para Matchitt.  Deserving more recognition is Marilynn Webb. Of Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa and Ngāti Kahu descent, Webb passed away in 2021. She is best known for prints that connect us to the landscape, considering the effects of environme...

Each week Culture 101 invites a guest to share their cultural favourites and shout-out to other artists. This week it’s former Shortland Street and Good Grief actor and writer Grace Palmer.   

The journey anthropologist and award-winning writer Dame Anne Salmond has made into Te Ao Māori as a Pākehā over 50 years - creating a bridge for others to connect with our histories, our environment and our peoples - has been extraordinary.

Every week on Culture 101 we check the pulse of a different area of Aotearoa. This week, we’re in Motueka with Donna McLeod. 

In her major exhibition Coastal Cannibals at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, with a camera, Ngahuia Harrison offers different views on our landscape than we are used to seeing in a frame. She considers the complexity of perspectives, from kaimoana gathering sites to brand new suburban waterfront property developments. 

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...