Pirates at Roar

Shiver me tim­bers, pre­pare to enter the wicked world of pir­ates.  Eight artists will sail the sev­en seas dis­cov­er­ing pir­ate treas­ure.  Jew­ellers Buster Collins, Vaune Mason and Aman­da How­ley are tak­ing on the accessor­ies of pir­ate-ism with a ven­geance.  From eye patches to col­lars, hooks to com­pass rings, these jew­ellers will provide all the treats and treas­ures that really […]

Binge Culture takes on Lucrece

“Audi­ence mem­bers will be seated close enough to touch the per­formers and view­ers will be encour­aged to think about the ways they look at women’s bod­ies – both on film and in the flesh.” No, that’s not the press release from Wel­ling­ton Fash­ion Week. Instead, it’s Lucrece: An Adapt­a­tion of Shakespeare’s the Rape of Lucrece, […]

New Zealand International Arts Festival 2012

The New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Arts Fest­iv­al opens tonight with a live event in con­juc­tion with the launch of First Con­tact. It’s FREE, fam­ily friendly, and starts at 8:30pm out­side Te Papa. There are visu­als by Linecheck­er and music and dance from the Whitireia Per­form­ing Arts School, The Nomad, Horomona Horo, Rhom­bus in Dub and Rayjah45. First […]

NZ Fringe Festival 2012 into week two

The New Zea­l­and Fringe Fest­iv­al presents emer­ging artists in a fest­iv­al of weird and won­der­ful per­form­ances around Wel­ling­ton. The shows are are reas­on­ably priced (or free) and are held in ven­ues all over the city. The pro­gramme is full of shows, con­veni­ently divided in the pro­gramme into genres –  Com­edy, Dance, Music, Theatre, or Visu­al […]

Unveiling Unveiled

Bet­ter than Christ­mas morn­ing was how this non fash­ionista* described Monday morn­ing at Te Papa when Tom and  I wit­nessed Keira Miller from Lon­don’s Vic­tor­ia & Albert Museum unpack­ing an embroidered silk sat­in wed­ding dress designed by Nor­man Hart­nell in 1933. Keira is in Wel­ling­ton to super­vise the unpack­ing and set­ting up of Unveiled: 200 years […]

The other important vote

The gen­er­al elec­tion is only a few weeks away, but right now there’s anoth­er import­ant vote hap­pen­ing. Yes, the vote on what sign will sit atop the Miramar Cut­ting. There are three options: The con­tro­ver­sial and largely dis­liked “Wel­ly­wood” sign “Wel­ling­ton” writ­ten in a sim­il­ar Hol­ly­wood sign style, but with the final let­ters being blow […]

Festival 2012

I’m old enough to remem­ber when the Arts Fest­iv­al was known archly as The New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Fest­iv­al of the Arts. In recent years the name has been tidied up but the goal has remained the same – bring really cool, really great, inter­na­tion­al artists to Wel­ling­ton and show­case their work along­side the best of […]

The glorious struggles of the people’s working-class rugby art sculpture

A year and a half ago we were offered a tan­tal­ising glimpse of the mod­el of the Weta Work­shop-designed Wel­ling­ton rugby sculp­ture, not­ing its resemb­lance to a pro­vin­cial juni­or rugby trophy, a knick-knack gift for a rugby-lov­ing uncle, and a vagina. And then finally the full-size sculp­ture appeared, tucked away in Jack Ilott Green, that […]

Exquisite Corpse

Perched upon the top of Cuba St, Thistle Hall is known for provid­ing Wel­ling­to­ni­ans with short bursts of visu­al arts. Exhib­its pack in and out again at a fren­et­ic pace, and if plan­ning and serendip­ity con­spire, treas­ures can be eas­ily missed. Take some time this week and get up to the cur­rent exhib­it. Exquis­ite Corpse draws its name from […]

WOW 2011

It’s WOW time again, and this year’s show is the most amaz­ing and extra­vag­ant yet. But was it too extra­vag­ant this year? I’ll get to that later. Please note that this post will con­tain spoil­ers about the show, so if you’re going, don’t read it until after­wards okay?  The Wel­ling­tonista has a little pre-WOW game. […]