First it was “Bret or Jer­maine?” then “Smash Mal­ice or Bru­tal Pae­gent?” but now it’s time for the real­ly big deci­sion — which Face­book group to join — “Hey, let’s NOT have a ‘Welly­wood’ sign in Welling­ton“or “A WELLYWOOD sign on the Mira­mar Cut­ting Hill is a STUPID idea”?

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.

One of the nicest things about the Fes­ti­val of the Arts is that there are almost always sev­er­al events that leave the realm of over­priced tow­ers of high-cul­ture and invade the every­day places. For exam­ple this year, we’ve loved the cir­cus events and the dancer with dig­ger in Wai­t­an­gi Park.

Right now, the fes­ti­val is get­ting a lit­tle more into the faces of the gold­en mile shop­pers and office lunchtime refugees with a series of shop win­dow instal­la­tions along Lambton Quay and near­by streets.

This is the Revolt of the Man­nequins, from French the­atre com­pa­ny Roy­al De Luxe. Every night, a new “episode” in each instal­la­tion is revealed; sto­ries are told against a wider nar­ra­tive of a rev­o­lu­tion of man­nequins against their oppres­sors. 

And while you’re busy check­ing out all ten offi­cial loca­tions (map here), put this track on high rotate, and let us know what and where you see the man­nequins next. For not all of the man­nequins are inside the shops (as the passers by who caught sight of the sniper yes­ter­day found out). 

And who knows — it could be that those that are not for the rev­o­lu­tion, are against it. 

There’s a lot on at the moment for fans of Mod­ern archi­tec­ture. The Long Live the Mod­ern exhi­bi­tion is at the New Dowse until the 4th of April, includ­ing two bus tours this week­end.

Sun­day’s tour will fea­ture Bill Toomath talk­ing about his design for the Teach­ers’ Col­lege in Karori. Welling­ton City Gallery’s exhi­bi­tion on Toomath­’s work, Lib­er­at­ing Every­day Life, fin­ish­es this Sun­day. Eye of the Fish hosts two live­ly dis­cus­sions on his water­front plans and study, show­ing that Toomath­’s con­tri­bu­tion to Welling­ton archi­tec­ture and archi­tec­tur­al debate is still strong.

If you’re more inter­est­ed in what the build­ings of tomor­row might look like, have a look at Reac­tive Archi­tec­ture at Te Papa. Some of the giant inhab­it­ed sails, human-pow­ered slot­cars and polyp-like motion-sen­si­tive façades may seem fan­ci­ful, but it’s a much more inspir­ing approach to mate­ri­als and design than just choos­ing which Hardie prod­uct to use.

If you weren’t aware, just a heads up that the Pom­peii exhi­bi­tion down at Te Papa is free for Welling­ton ratepay­ers and res­i­dents this Thurs­day (4 March). Details here.

[hat-tip: goNZo Freakpow­er]

Craft2.0 kicks off 2010 with a fourth birth­day bash this Sat­ur­day (March 6th) from 11am to 3pm at The­New­Dowse in Low­er Hutt.

Over 4 years Craft2.0 has become syn­ony­mous with high qual­i­ty, diverse prod­ucts proud­ly claim­ing ‘New Zealand Made’ or even bet­ter, ‘Welling­ton made’. March sees the biggest fair yet with 70 crafters, many sell­ing for the first time. You may dis­cov­er that your neigh­bour moon­lights as an artist, a col­league is a clos­et knit­ter and the kid next door’s Dad is rather resource­ful in the design depart­ment.

Many of the crafters use recycled/vintage mate­ri­als, like cast-off alu­mini­um tabs, e‑waste, old board games, cut­lery and oth­er quirky objects that often end up at the rub­bish dump — it’s all about being resource­ful.

Plus there is a free mak­ing table for a kids, and if you are a Friend of Craft2.0 you get a free gift on arrival and the abil­i­ty to start shop­ping at 10.15 before the crowds arrive at 11.

and if you’ve a han­ker­ing for all things hand­made, don’t for­get The Inau­gur­al 2010 JAM OFF tomor­row at 11.30 at mojo old bank.

If you haven’t heard already, the Big Tune-in Sit-in is on today from 1–2pm on Par­lia­ment lawn. Bring your portable radio and a pic­nic lunch to cel­e­brate Radio New Zealand and its impor­tance to New Zealand’s cul­tur­al life. As Sue says over on her Craft2.0 blog:

yup it’s a protest pic­nic, which real­ly is an incred­i­bly classy and spe­cial way of say­ing how much you love our nation­al broad­cast­er.

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 “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.