Culture 101

Fast Favourites: TV presenter and journalist Laura Tupou.

In 2023 Aotearoa lost one of its most beloved curators and supporters of contemporary photography, and Maori and Pacific art and artists, Ron Brownson. When he died Brownson was Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. He had been at the gallery since becoming a research librarian there in 1978. 

Stage and screen veteran Fiona Samuel has been awarded this year's Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship by the Arts Foundation.

Each week Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of Aotearoa for our regional wrap. KOAST Arts Trail has been taking place this Labour Weekend in the Bay of Islands and the Far North. The region is home to many artists, visitors and art collectors. Over the four days, an art trail including Russell, Doubtless Bay and Kaitaia gives an opportunity to enjoy the area and visit different ar...

Last month, a century-old Maori carving was restored and gifted to the British people. Carved originally in 1910, by master carver Tene Waitere, the pou was completed by his great-great-great grandson, Robert Schuster Rika, to honour the legacy of the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford University.

For their latest installation Elisapeta Heta and Raukura Turei have designed a space inspired by the special space Kohanga Reo plays in their lives.

This year's Arts Laureates have been announced with eight new artists being honoured and recognised for their exceptional work and their contribution to Aotearoa's cultural landscape and communities.

Every week on our Regional Wrap we travel to a different place around the country and, today, nestled in the Waikato below the Kaimai Ranges it's the historic town of Te Aroha.

Landscape astro photographer, Tom Rae, has won the Royal Museums Greenwich Skyscapes Astronomy Photographer of the Year for a second time.

From the news headlines to carving, from poetry and film to waiata and whakatauki the taniwha is a pervasive yet mysterious figure in our culture.

Teaspoons, teapots, trophies, vases, trays and napkin rings. Silver objects have long been prized as a way of celebrating and commemorating.

Children's and young-adult author, Kiri Lightfoot, has long had a love of picture books. As a teenager she would only taking babysitting jobs if there was a generous library on offer and even reading picture books well into her twenties.

Show Me Shorts Film Festival turns 20 this year. It's become Aotearoa's leading international short film festival and this month there will be more than 80 films, 100 screenings across 40 venues this month.

In 1953 Queen Salote of Tonga visited England for Queen Elizabeth the Second's Coronation. At which, she is said to have won "the affection of the British people" by riding to the ceremony in the rain. It's a visit remembered in a large black tapa work or ngatu ta'uli - which is a royal Tongan specialty - by Otautahi Christchurch based artist Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka. 

Each week Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of Aotearoa. Occasionally we go into the suburbs and this week we're going inner-west in Tamaki Makaurau.

Shortly opening in Wellington, Tauranga and Nelson are touring works by two of this country's most well-travelled, and most acclaimed contemporary theatre producers. And boy do they get about. They are Trick of the Light - led by Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith - and EBKM, led by theatremakers Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken. 

Author Becky Manawatu has won The Sargeson Prize, the country's biggest short story competition, taking home $15,000 for her work, The Vase.

Next Friday and Saturday, the Kupu Maori Writers Festival brings together authors from across the motu to significant locations across Rotorua. 

Did you ever have a dream house as a child? One you told your parents you wanted to be yours one day? Perhaps, like Tracey Scott's, it even had a turret!

The biennial Colville Creators & Makers Festival finishes tomorrow after six days of exhibits and creative workshops. Held in Colville Hall, 30 minutes drive northward from Coromandel Town, organisers have brought together a range of artists to display their pottery, painting, weaving, walking staffs, and more. In another ajoining space, visitors can get involved with workshops and experiment in d...

Hawke's Bay Arts Festival kicks off next week and it's marking its 10th anniversary.

The late painter blazed a brilliant, dazzling trail across the Aotearoa New Zealand art scene of the 1970s.

Culture 101 speaks to three Victoria University researchers and lecturers who look at the intersection of video games, and culture.

Artery of the Wild is on now at the Leftbank Gallery in Greymouth.

Director and producer June Renwick joins Culture 101 to talk about her lifelong love of drama and why she set up the Selwyn Community Arts Theatre.