poster for the exhibition with a lot of text on it

Sex Workers of Aotearoa: A Day in the Life of

Sex workers and artists have gone hand in hand for hundreds if not thousands of years.  Think of basically nearly every nude woman in a classic painting by a white dude, or Moulin Rouge, or ‘Victoria’ or countless other examples and you get the idea. Oh sure, they’re muses. But what if we didn’t centre […]

Preview: Kia Mau Festival

The fourth Kia Mau Festival is on from 1-16 June 2018. A contemporary Indigenous theatre and dance experience, the festival celebrates Māori, Pasifika, First Nations artists and their companies. Kia Mau Festival is an innovative experience for whānau and communities throughout the Wellington region to engage with Tangata Whenua and First Nations artists from across […]

A new taonga for Ngā Taonga

The 2014 amalgamation of our Film, Television and Sound Archives into Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision saw its nomenclature justified this week with the unveiling of an aural taonga for the ages. On the 35th anniversary of Wellington Access Radio’s arrival on air, broadcast material dating back throughout the station’s lively history has been added […]

Something wonderful at The Dowse

Emma from Emma Makes kindly visited and revisited  – Wunderrūma: New Zealand Jewellery  exhibition at The Dowse  for us. Each time I return to Wunderrūma: New Zealand Jewellery I find something new I want to own. It began at the opening with Emily Valentine’s Kingfisher Brooch (2013). “Is that a bird?” said the friend I was […]

Maketorium – let the making begin

This weekend at Te Papa is going to be a grand one. Not only is it your last chance to see the very popular Game Masters, but kicking off at 10am and running non stop till 6pm on Saturday is Makertorium! Makertorium is a celebration of New Zealand’s  crafters, creators, tinkerers and inventors, of all […]

theNewDowse goes ape sh*t

The spiders are coming!Taken straight from the Weta Holics website:

As if you needed another reason to live in New Zealand! The wonderful Dowse Museum in Lower Hutt has just re-launched and is now calling itself TheNewDowse . . . AND they’re hosting a King Kong exhibition from June to November this year!

They’re calling it Becoming King Kong. I feel excited just thinking about it!

It’s opening on 23 June and runs until 11 November 2007. A wee bird tells me that it’s packed with insights into the ground-breaking film-making technologies used to make the movie, as well as the creative processes used in the conception of the character of Kong. That’s right – the grumpy ape that keeps on turning up in the film he he…

The exhibition will take you behind the scenes to experience the Weta way of working, the expansive collection of the sculptured creatures, the beauty of the sketches, the innovative techniques and the secrets of how these were achieved: it took thousands of drawings, hundreds of design maquettes and Weta Digital’s visual effects team years of work to create the character of Kong.

To celebrate the exhibition, we’ll be revealing previously never seen before online images from the making of the film in the new Weta Gallery

Coming soon

Muka

The Settlers Museum is hosting the MUKA YOUTH PRINT EXHIBITION 2006.

The exhibition features a collection of forty original lithographs by twenty prominent artists from New Zealand, Australia and Europe.

The exhibition is unique in that it is only open to young people aged 5 to 18. The idea is that young people are given the opportunity to see, select and buy an art work that they like, uninfluenced by adults or the name of the artist. All the works reflect the normal style of the artists and there is no “talking down” to the children.

The uniform low price means that this is an excellent way for young people to get real works of art into their hands.

Settlers Museum
The Esplanade
Petone

25 and 26 November
12 noon – 5pm

Eclectic Electric

Here are a few things to keep your mind off the weather this weekend.

The World Press Photo ’06 exhibition kicks off at Shed 11 today. It’s been interesting to see that the publicity around town has taken a very political angle this year.

Just along the waterfront at the Museum of Wellington City and Sea (I wish they’d find a shorter name!), they’re already two weeks into the month-long Wellingtonia LIVE event. The word “eclectic” doesn’t even begin to describe the range of things going on there: there’s a performances from the Tinakori Handbell Association, a Matariki celebration with Toni Huata, hurdy-gurdies, shanty singers, ghost tours, kete weaving and a debate on the controversial Marine Education Centre. My main interest will be in the series of talks organised by the Architectural Centre entitled “Why I do architecture”. These kick off at 1pm tomorrow with Anna Kemble-Walsh and Martin Hanley of Red Design and John Mills of John Mills Architects.

Poster for debut gig by The Blush ResponseFrom eclectic to electric: new synth-pop band The Blush Response have their debut gig at Sandwiches tomorrow night. The band may be new, but the musicians will be very familiar to Wellingtonians: Jeramiah Ross (aka Module), Rhian Sheehan, Raashi Malik (of Rhombus, among others) and Paul McLaney of Gramsci.

Finally, you could always try to figure out the location of the current Mystery Bar. If you do, you’d better get looking tonight because it’s closed on Saturday nights (that’s a clue). It also has something in common with Sandwiches.

Treaty2U

For those of you interested in neither the Sevens, nor local music… How about this? An opportunity to see the Touring Treaty exhibition TREATY 2 U, the Treaty of Waitangi touring exhibition which is travelling around New Zealand over the next few months will be in the Wellington region over Waitangi weekend. It will be […]