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. […]