Preview: Kia Mau Festival

The fourth Kia Mau Festival is on from 1-16 June 2018. A contemporary Indigenous theatre and dance experience, the festival celebrates Māori, Pasifika, First Nations artists and their companies. Kia Mau Festival is an innovative experience for whānau and communities throughout the Wellington region to engage with Tangata Whenua and First Nations artists from across […]

It never rains…

…but it pours, especially in Porirua today, causing sudden flooding and serious disruption. I downloaded the hourly rainfall data from Greater Wellington’s site (a rather painful manual process, but a big improvement from not long ago, when you could only get the charts as static images) and put together a quick graph. Here are cumulative […]

Notional Significance: Yellow Earth

[See all Notional Significance posts] Wind-hurried raindrops pelt against the Shadehouse roof, which provides but meagre shelter as I wait out the passing shower. Cold droplets descend through green air into the expectant foliage, maintaining a humid atmosphere to feed a pteridomaniac’s wet dream. In a fern-fevered nation this is an orgy of patriotic symbols, […]

Notional Significance: Lagoons

[Alf’s back after a long absence! You can catch up on his previous post in this series, or read all Notional Significance posts.] The path skirts the six-lane highway, compressed between traffic and hillside, passing beneath stolid, galvanised totems that awaken onrushing commuters to an imminent decision. Soon the curve of the carriageway straightens, but the scrubby […]

Are you Super? Will you Submit

The local government commission has proposed a reorganisation of the Wellington region, which you can read more about over on the local government commission site. The regional council is split over the proposal. Perhaps more importantly, according to Stuff, only 26% of Wellingtonians are in favour of the proposal. We’re not taking a side here […]

Notional Significance: Two Tides

[See all Notional Significance posts] The stream is now fully canalised, a tame channel running arrow-straight towards the harbour, as subtle as an engineer’s ruler. It once meandered across the broadening valley, softly folding into the estuarine flats. On its left bank, the colonial forces built Elliot’s Stockade to oversee the new road, but the […]

Notional Significance: Asylum

[See all Notional Significance posts] After my detour, I head back to the motorway’s edge. My route takes me along Mexted Terrace—a name that is engraved across Tawa’s skin, and with its twin associations of car dealerships and rugby it encompasses two dimensions of the suburban mythos. On the corner of Tremewan Street, with the […]

What a Feeling!

Do you ever wonder what happens at the end of the day to the freshly made bread that Wellington bakeries can’t sell? Do you ever wonder what happens to the fresh fruit and vegetables at the markets that are still edible but not good enough to sell? I can tell you. For the last few […]

Crafting at Pataka

Saturday June 9, 10am – 4pm

CRAFTING is a part of THE BIG LOOK-SEE at Pataka this weekend, which is an open day event for galleries and museums in the region.

CRAFTING will also celebrate one of Pataka’s exhibitions called Arts Society by Judy Darragh. The exhibition is an art installation that celebrates ‘craft’ and the handmade.

There will be a stunning range of fun and funky jewellery, art objects, cushions, toys, clothes, accessories and loads more cool stuff.

You can also play a little game of ‘Spot the Wellingtonista’, as there will be no less than THREE of us there. Come and say a big “hola”, and buy us a gin. Man, there’d better be some gin.


A flag for our time

A weekend trip to the outer reaches of Wellingtonist coverage ended with a cracking visit to Pataka at Porirua and in particular the comprehensive and thought provoking ‘Symbols of Sovereignty‘ series. Outlining the extraordinary evolution of flags in New Zealand this a series of five exhibitions all with a flag theme: JACK OR BLACK – […]