Author: Robyn

Art, Art, Art!

So, right now there’s a whole lot of really good stuff being exhib­ited in Wel­ling­ton’s gal­ler­ies.

City Gal­lery

After the hugely suc­cess­ful Yayoi Kusama exhib­i­tion turned the gal­lery into a magic­al won­der­land, the main gal­lery space has now been giv­en over to three also won­der­ful artists.

More after the jump. 

Hello, Kitties

You know there’s that cat you see on the way to the bus stop – the one that rolls around on the foot­path and lets you tickle his belly, and you’ve nick­named him Cap­tain Choice­pants? Well, that’s a neigh­bour­hood cat.

Inspired by the Neigh­bour Cats zines, Petra Jane has cre­ated a pub­lic Google map of neigh­bour­hood cats around Wel­ling­ton and bey­ond.

So if there’s a furry rogue in your ‘hood, add it to the map!

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UPDATE: The Neigh­bour­hood Cats map has been shut down. Could this be to foil poten­tial cat­nap­pers? Oh well – you’ll just have to cre­ate a map in your mind.

Wellywood Sign Generator

The Wel­ly­wood sign madness/awesomeness con­tin­ues!

Auck­lander Edward from has cre­ated the Wel­ly­wood Sign Gen­er­at­or.

This is a crop of my attempt, where I have added a help­ful “lol” to explain that the sign is a “send-up” and a “tongue-in-cheek play” on the Hol­ly­wood sign.

Hooray for Wellywood

Every­one knows that while Wel­ling­ton has a world-class, award-win­ning film pro­duc­tion industry, it’s been sorely lack­ing one ser­i­ous thing: a giant sign pro­claim­ing WELLYWOOD.

Well, our pray­ers have been answered! By June a giant WELLYWOOD sign will be erec­ted in the hills of Miramar, and will serve as a visu­al dis­trac­tion for pas­sen­gers suf­fer­ing a bumpy approach to the air­port.

Quoted in the Dom Post, May­or Kerry sez:

“The sign will be one of the first things people will see when they arrive in Wel­ling­ton. They will be left in no doubt that this is the heart and soul of New Zeal­and’s film industry.”

Unless you make the approach from the Lyall Bay end of the run­way. In which case, you will be left think­ing you’ve just arrived in Wel­ling­ton, not the world centre of the film-mak­ing uni­verse.

Oh, I sup­pose I should­n’t mock it. After all, the Hol­ly­wood sign turned that small Los Angeles vil­lage into a film-mak­ing centre second only to Wel­ling­ton.

And, to be fair, it’s a little embarass­ing that Mos­giel has a giant sign in the hills but Wel­ling­ton does­n’t yet.

Ignite Wellington

Next Tues­day, 2 March, sees the very first Ignite even­ing in Wel­ling­ton, 6.30 at the Para­mount Theatre.

Ignite is sim­il­ar in format to Pecha Kucha even­ings. With Ignite, the speak­ers have five minutes each to deliv­er 20 slides, at 15 seconds per slide. This con­straint will (hope­fully) unleash creav­ity and causes audi­ences brains to ignite with inspir­a­tion. Or some­thing like that.

The line-up so far has some­thing for every­one:

James Ever­ett – Design for Play
Mike Brown – Cyc­ling across Amer­ica
Tim McNamara – Kiwis help­ing Haiti (& more!)
Lenz Gschwendtner – Real­ising your ideas
Julia Hol­d­er­ness – Venice Bien­ni­al
Dave Moskovitz – The music industry
Mark Har­ris – ACTA – We *could* tell you, but we’d have to kill you
Dave ten Have – Noth­ing to fear, but fear
Melissa Clark-Reyn­olds
Sarah Harpur
Dav­id Ritch­ie

Find out more at the Ignite web­site. Admis­sion is free, but make sure you register if you want to go. It’s going to be a good one.

The art of the panhandle

The “Excuse Me” guy aside, Wel­ling­ton does­n’t see all that many pan­hand­lers around. But recently, a fel­low has taken up in the door­way of the old United Video on Cour­tenay Place, with a sign advising pass­ersby by that he’s look­ing for money for a trip to Auck­land.

What lies in this golden land is uncer­tain. When I passed by the spot tonight, he was nowhere to be seen, but someone had made this sign:

A guer­illa art pro­ject? A clev­er anti-pan­hand­ling meas­ure? Or per­haps this will become a new tour­ist attrac­tion – get your photo taken look­ing for­lorn under the sign, and maybe one day you too will make it to Auck­land.

Boganwatch

AC/DC – the greatest band on the plan­et – are play­ing in Wel­ling­ton tonight and Sat­urday on the Black Ice tour, and the city has been over­run by bogans, glor­i­ous bogans.

Stuff reports on the inva­sion, includ­ing a quote from one fan who reck­ons, “I’d say every bogan from around the coun­try will be there.”

Mean­while, the arrival of our black-T-shir­ted brethren has not gone unnoticed on Twit­ter:

@CUSTOMSBREWBAR ghuznee street is crawl­ing with old bogans… so many black jeans and met­al tshirts! “Throw your goats up”

@meganhuddleston There are a ridicu­lous num­ber of bogans in town. THUNDER!

@bnolan Lol at all the bogans out­side. It’s awe­some how you can just tell they’re going to ACDC. Super nice people so far too! Rock on! #acdc #wlg

@Narelle_NZ Saw at least 15 bogans and 2 mini-bogans on the way to get lunch #acdc #wel­ling­ton

@bradgallen Today wel­ling­ton = So. Many. Bogans…

@missannajane The black holey jump­ers and ACDC t‑shirts are out en force on the streets of Wel­ling­ton. Appar­ently, bogans drink Star­bucks.

We wel­come any com­ments or obser­va­tions of the bogan inva­sion. Man, Wel­ling­ton is gonna go off this week­end!