Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the res­ults at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

For us, Art with a cap­it­al A isn’t just about look­ing at a pic­ture in a frame and going, “Oh yes, nice use of col­our there”. It’s got to be some­thing that you feel, that touches you meta­phor­ic­ally and per­haps lit­er­ally, some­thing you can totally immerse your­self in. These exper­i­ences were the epi­tome of that feel­ing this year…

Out­door Knit: For bring­ing cre­ativ­ity and craft to some places that needed the love. Two of their most high-pro­file pro­jects are the “It will all be OK” fence, and the fence of hearts. But their yarny gifts and events don’t stop there. They stunned every­one at the Cuba Street Car­ni­val with a day-long knit­ting frenzy out­side the Bris­tol (and cheers to the coun­cil for let­ting it stay up so long.) Wel­ling­ton is full of their little addi­tions. Just keep your eyes open for new pro­jects. 

Page Black­ie Gal­lery: 2009 was the year deal­er gal­lery Page Black­ie (Vic­tor­ia Street, oppos­ite the lib­rary) asser­ted itself as an art force to be reckoned with. A series of enga­ging shows and some wicked live gigs by the likes of Lawrence Ara­bia and the Wel­ling­ton Inter­na­tion­al Ukelele Orches­tra have shown the gal­lery’s con­fid­ent approach. The high­light for 2009 was watch­ing Dick Frizzell and his wife play­ing their ukes and singing with the Orches­tra for his book launch at the gal­lery’s annu­al land­scape show. Recog­nised by _Dom Post_ review­er Mark Amery as behav­ing more like a pub­lic gal­lery, PB has raised the bar this year, and it’ll be inter­est­ing to see if oth­er deal­er gal­ler­ies in town take note! They’ve even star­ted their own blog. 

Ero­gen­ous Tones: Chances are that you’ve read some slash fic­tion before, but have you ever had it read to you in a crazy Rus­si­an-ish accent? No? Luck­ily Ero­gen­ous Tones exist in order to fill that void in your life. In the lush environs of the Watusi, three attract­ive young ladies will bring stor­ies about Uncle Jessie (aka John Stamos) tak­ing good care of the Olsen twins; of Madonna and Brit­ney post-MTV kiss; or per­haps some­thing about Dr Phil’s foot fet­ish – or whatever they might have found on the net that day. It’s uncom­fort­able, hil­ari­ous, and hope­fully not at all erot­ic, and it’s def­in­itely some­thing dif­fer­ent. It’s art. 

Yayoi Kusama at City Gal­lery Wel­ling­ton: The City Gal­lery needed some­thing spe­cial to kick off their made-over spaces, and Kusama’s dots cer­tainly delivered a punch. By tak­ing over the façade and reach­ing out to the people of Wel­ling­ton, the spots appealed to a wider range of people than the aver­age exhib­i­tion, yet the exhib­i­tion as a whole provided a more subtle and pro­voc­at­ive exper­i­ence amid the mind-bend­ing col­ours. 

Plastic Maori Exhib­i­tion at The­New­Dowse: Filled with plastic tiki, tuku­tuku pan­els made from com­puter key­boards, and oth­er mash-ups of the mod­ern and the tra­di­tion­al, this exhib­i­tion took us into the future of Maori design, and fea­tured a spe­cial appear­ance from NZ’s most fam­ous plastic Maori – Manu from Play­school. The Bouncy Marae week­end was pop­u­lar with kids of all ages.