The Wellingtonista

Author: Robyn

November 1, 2010

Who’s the coolest of them all?

So, the news is out – on the front page of the Dom­Post, an advert­ising col­our sup­ple­ment, and ban­ners all along the Golden Mile: Wel­ling­ton is the “coolest little cap­it­al in the world”.

Robyn
Sights
1 Comment
October 27, 2010

Wellington On Screen

NZ On Screen – the bril­liant web­site ded­ic­ated to put­ting New Zea­l­and film, tele­vi­sion and music video online – is cel­eb­rat­ing its second birth­day. So to help cel­eb­rate, let us delve into the NZ On Screen archives and see what Wel­ling­ton gems are to be seen. Monaco Monza Macao Wel­ling­ton (1990) A TV doco look­ing […]

Robyn
Film / Internet/Web / Television
2 Comments
October 19, 2010

Review: Inuit Time

While the Wells Group’s pro-unem­ploy­­ment install­a­tion piece con­tin­ues to anger and bewilder ordin­ary, hard­work­ing Kiwis, artist­ic mas­ter­mind Tao Wells con­tin­ues to, er, work. In addi­tion to the Let­ting Space install­a­tion, Wells is present­ing two per­form­ances of his theatre show Inu­it Time, once described as “an insult to the fun­da­ment­als of theatre”. The first per­form­ance was […]

Robyn
Art / Theatre
3 Comments
October 18, 2010

Japan City: the fruity fruits of globalisation

The former Hal­len­steins build­ing on Cuba Mall has been under­go­ing a bit of a facelift, get­ting rid of its cute and inter­est­ing 1980s post-mod­­ern facade and repla­cing it with some­thing that looks a lot less inter­est­ing (sob!) But what’s lost in the build­ing has partly been made up for with its cheer­ful new ten­ant, the […]

Robyn
Retail
9 Comments
October 16, 2010

The Beneficiary’s Office

Artist and pro­vocateur Tao Wells is caus­ing a mighty ruck­us with his new art install­a­tion pro­ject, The Bene­fi­ciary’s Office. As part of the Let­ting Space pro­gramme – which pairs artists with unused com­mer­cial spaces – Wells has estab­lished a cor­por­ate office for the Wells Group, a PR com­pany which argues that the unem­ployed are more […]

Robyn
Art
7 Comments
October 14, 2010

Zealandia is freelandia

This week­end – 16 and 17 Octo­ber, admis­sion to Zeal­and­ia is free! Admis­sion to Wellington’s world-first wild­life sanc­tu­ary, ZEALANDIA, is free for all loc­als this Sat­urday and Sunday! We are now 15 years into an incred­ible jour­ney to restore a corner of NZ as closely as pos­sible to the way it was before humans arrived. […]

Robyn
Environment / Outdoors / Sights / Suburbs
7 Comments
October 13, 2010

All hail our new Green mayor

Earli­er this after­noon, final res­ults for the Wel­ling­ton may­or­al elec­tion were released. Finally the reign of Pren­der­gast comes to an end, etc, and we rejoice in the elec­tion of our new Green may­or. Offi­cial res­ults: Celia Wade-Brown 24,881 Kerry Pren­der­gast 24,705 Jack Yan 7,426 Bry­an Robert Pepper­ell 5,954 Bern­ard O’Shaugh­nessy 1,174 Al Mansell 542 We’ll […]

Robyn
Elections2010 / Politics
23 Comments
October 13, 2010

Music vs Art = Open City

City Gal­lery is cur­rently exhib­it­ing Round­about, a major col­lec­tion of bold, bright and wicked-as works from emer­ging artists from around the world. It’s well worth a vis­it. Part of Round­about is 48,000 Revolu­tions, a piece by Fly­ing Nun founder Roger Shep­herd. He’s selec­ted 24 hours worth of songs, which ran­domly play. There is also – and […]

Robyn
Art / Music
1 Comment
October 1, 2010

Wellingtonista on the telly

Last night, our fear­less editor­ess Joanna appeared on Media7. The epis­ode was ded­ic­ated to region­al media cov­er­age of may­or­al cam­paigns, from North­land to South­land. Joanna talked about the Wel­ling­tonista’s may­or­al can­did­ate ques­tion­naire, includ­ing that one can­did­ate who could­n’t fol­low dir­ec­tions.

Jo did us proud, and skil­fully man­aged to glam­or­ously coordin­ate with the Media 7 set. You can watch the epis­ode in full here.

After see­ing the clips of region­al telly in oth­er parts of New Zea­l­and, it makes me wish for Wel­ling­ton to have its own low-budget, slightly crappy region­al tele­vi­sion chan­nel.

—

And speak­ing of Wel­ling­ton loc­al body polit­ics and TVNZ 7, on Wed­nes­day night, Back Benches held a debate with the Wel­ling­ton may­or­al can­did­ates, focus­ing on trans­port and tour­ism. Watch the epis­ode here.

Robyn
Uncategorised
5 Comments
October 1, 2010

What’s happened to Offbeat Originals?

What’s happened to Off­beat Ori­gin­als?

A sign has appeared on the door of the TAWA-nom­in­ated cafe advising the pop­u­lar joint is “closed until fur­ther notice”.

This news has thrown the Wel­ling­ton beat­nik and hip­ster com­munity into a dis­ar­ray. Where will we go for our toasties, tofu bur­gers and pea­nut but­ter and chocol­ate shakes? Where will we sit in the sun listen­ing to bangin’ old punk?

A Face­book group called Save Off­beat Ori­gin­als has been cre­ated, hint­ing that per­haps an evil cor­por­a­tion has some­thing to do with it.

But at this stage, we still don’t know what’s behind Off­beat’s sud­den clos­ure. If you have any info, leave a com­ment.

Robyn
Food & Drink
8 Comments