Ten Years in Pōneke: Part Three – (AN EGG HUNT RETROSPECTIVE)

One of the first things that happened when I moved to Pōneke in 2015 was the Big Egg Hunt. From March to April 2015 100 giant eggs were hid­den around Wel­ling­ton, Auck­land and Christ­ch­urch, with the eggs being auc­tioned off to fun­draise for Star­ship at the end of the quest. I love a little quest, […]

Shadow of figure sitting down in front of two wall size projected images of an abstract image of thousands of blue coloured lines

The Grid – New Digital Art Space

Writ­ten by Nadia Free­man Wel­ling­ton’s new­est and poten­tially first digit­al art space opened this month, and I am deeply appre­ci­at­ive of the entre­pren­eur­i­al spir­it of Shan­non Bros­na­han Ing­lis and Delainy Jamahl. In an era when invest­ment in the arts is dwind­ling, launch­ing a ven­ture of this scale and qual­ity is inspir­ing. Ini­ti­at­ives like this infuse […]

A photo of Pepper

Meet Pepper Racoon – what a ratbag!

1. Hello, who are you and what do you do? I’m Pep­per Rac­coon and I’m an artist and merch design­er inspired by nature, magic, and inter­net cul­ture. I design my own afford­able art products, and pro­duce a lot of them in my home stu­dio as well, and have been in busi­ness for 8 years selling […]

Best of the week 7–14 July 2024

Here’s what’s good and Wel­ling­ton-related this week! Best book that every Wel­ling­to­ni­an should read because I just did and wow Sod­den Down­stream by Bran­navan Gnan­alingam.  This has sat neg­lected on my book­shelf for far too long after it came out in 2017, but as our pub­lic trans­port gets worse, ter­rible weath­er events get more fre­quent […]

Review: The Griegol

We need more shows like this. The kind that effort­lessly trans­ports you to the same child­like sense of won­der, akin to the first time you are read what will become your favour­ite story. And it is no coin­cid­ence that The Griegol, writ­ten by Han­nah Smith and Ral­ph McCub­bin How­ell, revolves around the power of storytelling. […]

Sex Workers of Aotearoa; A Day in the Life of exhibition

Back for the fourth year in a row – Sex Work­ers of Aotearoa; A Day in the Life of – is an annu­al art exhib­i­tion in which all art has been cre­ated by cur­rent or past sex work­ers. The art­work is for sale, show­cas­ing vari­ous medi­ums; pho­to­graphy, ink, paint, mixed media, cross-stitch, sculp­ture, poetry and more.   […]

The Weight of a Thousand Oceans – review & giveaway

Wel­ling­ton writers increas­ingly (and entirely jus­ti­fi­ably) are view­ing the ongo­ing cli­mate dis­aster as a rich source of mater­i­al for cre­at­ing intriguing, ima­gin­at­ive spec­u­lat­ive fic­tion. Based in future worlds where human­ity has failed to stop a cata­stroph­ic, civil­­iz­a­­tion-alter­­ing change in the cli­mate sys­tem, these stor­ies of what might be, if we don’t sort our shit out, […]

Things are getting surreal at Te Papa

We might be stuck in New Zea­l­and for a while, but that does­n’t mean the world can­’t come to us (espe­cially if they’re rich, appar­ently). That’s the cool thing about the new exhib­i­tion Sur­real­ist Art: Mas­ter­pieces from Museum Boij­mans Van Beunin­gen He Toi Pohewa: He Toi Marupō o Muhiama o Boij­mans Van Beunin­gen. You’ll get a […]

Kia Mau festival!

The Kia Mau Fest­iv­al star­ted last week and is already racing along. It’s a treat to see Māori and Pasi­fika excel­lence in live per­form­ance – here’s what’s on this week. All I See at Circa Theatre The explo­sion of grief causes memor­ies to rico­chet around her. Memor­ies begin to bleed into her real­ity. Time col­lapses. […]

Review: The Human Voice (La Voix Humaine; NZO season)

TW:  Sui­cide, over­dose, trauma I reviewed a pro­duc­tion of La Voix Humaine in Feb­ru­ary.  It’s been a strange worm­hole of a year and it feels like a mil­lion years ago but also maybe yes­ter­day that I was sit­ting in Suite Gal­lery, exper­i­en­cing this piece for the first time.  Writ­ing this review with the last one […]