News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Art Lover Sigrid Kirk on Her Personal Collection

Art Lover Sigrid Kirk on Her Personal Collection

New Zealand-born, London-based collector Sigrid Kirk wears many hats: art advisor, cultural strategist, independent curator, patron and co-founder of the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA). Art market website ArtNet speaks with Kirk…

In Lioness Emily Perkins Weaves A Seductive Web

In Lioness Emily Perkins Weaves A Seductive Web

“Emily Perkins’ previous novel, The Forrests, was longlisted for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and her work for stage and screen includes co-writing the film adaptation of fellow New Zealander and Booker-winner Eleanor Catton’s…

Comic Cal Wilson Uncovers Who the Hell We Are

Comic Cal Wilson Uncovers Who the Hell We Are

Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) sat down with Melbourne-based New Zealand comedian Cal Wilson, 52, to talk about the barely known part of Australian history she uncovers in the SBS series, Who The Bloody…

Rachel House Stealing Every Scene on Australian TV

Rachel House Stealing Every Scene on Australian TV

With her commanding presence and unmistakable New Zealand accent, Rachel House, 51, is a serial scene-stealer on Australian television and film. Whether it’s grossing out the sex-ed class as Principal “Woodsy” in Heartbreak High,…

Catherine Chidgey’s Latest a Sly Thriller

Catherine Chidgey’s Latest a Sly Thriller

New Zealander Catherine Chidgey’s latest novel, Pet, set in 1980s suburban, Catholic Wellington, moves to a dark denouement powered by lingering uncertainty, Hephzibah Anderson writes in a review of the book for The Observer. “Chidgey’s…

Tayi Tibble’s New Poem Published in New Yorker

Tayi Tibble’s New Poem Published in New Yorker

Tayi Tibble, a Māori writer from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa, has had her poem Creation Story published in The New Yorker. She is the author of two poetry collections, Poūkahangatus and Rangikura, the former

Sculptor Dawn Conn Exhibits in Cork

Sculptor Dawn Conn Exhibits in Cork

New Zealand artist Dawn Conn, who recently made headlines winning a Gold 5* Award at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, is exhibiting her sculptures at The Kildare Gallery’s annual sculpture exhibition in Cork, the…

Sandra Nunnerley’s Nova Table Has A Futuristic Feel

Sandra Nunnerley’s Nova Table Has A Futuristic Feel

Luxury interior design media 1stDibs features New Zealand-born designer Sandra Nunnerley’s latest astronomy-inspired console, the Nova. “I’m all for beauty, but I’m also very practical,” says the New York–based designer who creates elegant, tailored and…

Rebecca Zephyr Thomas Looks Back at Underage

Rebecca Zephyr Thomas Looks Back at Underage

Rebecca Zephyr Thomas, a New Zealand-born photographer, had moved to Shoreditch in 2004, poised and ready to capture the heyday of indie sleaze. Sympathetic to teenagers and understanding of their angst, she attended Underage…

Cape to Bluff a Gem of an Architecture Publication

Cape to Bluff a Gem of an Architecture Publication

“Here at Wallpaper*, we’re students for life. We’ve got architecture books piling up on shelves, desks and floor space surrounding the bookcase, despite minimalist efforts. These are the photographic tomes, architects’ monographs and limited…

Taika Waititi on the Cover of Hollywood Reporter

Taika Waititi on the Cover of Hollywood Reporter

With sly and subversive humour, multihyphenate powerhouse Taika Waititi is redefining representation – “Comedy is a great way of pulling people in and going, ‘Hey, we’re all friends. Get comfortable. You’re racist’” – while…

Antony Starr Plays TV’s Most Intriguing Villain

Antony Starr Plays TV’s Most Intriguing Villain

Sitting down with Antony Starr, 47, who plays perhaps the most intriguing villain on current television as Homelander on The Boys, is disconcerting. Homelander is an Aryan super-sociopath, a gleaming Mr America with a…

Eleanor Catton to Speak at Edinburgh Book Festival

Eleanor Catton to Speak at Edinburgh Book Festival

Booker Prize winner New Zealander Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood, will be in conversation with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 24 August, The Herald reports. “A decade after…

Jacinda Ardern Impresses at Architects’ Conference

Jacinda Ardern Impresses at Architects’ Conference

Architect John Lape admitted he knew little about former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, 42, as he ascended the escalators at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to hear her address the American Institute…

Life is Good for Taika Waititi and Rita Ora

Life is Good for Taika Waititi and Rita Ora

They fell in love in Sydney, so it’s fitting to shoot New Zealander Taika Waititi, 47, and British popstar Rita Ora, 32, for their first cover together against the backdrop of the glittering harbour….

Artist Bella McGoldrick Inspired by Coffee

Artist Bella McGoldrick Inspired by Coffee

Working meticulously with coloured pencil, with each drawing taking up to 200 hours for an almost photo-like finish, New Zealand-born Bella McGoldrick’s travel paintings capture connection. Her new Black Water collection explores a global…

Niki Caro Holds Reins Tight in The Mother

Niki Caro Holds Reins Tight in The Mother

“The Mother is a mutha of an intimately scaled action film, a violent female-centric drama about a hardened combat veteran who has great difficulty adapting to being anything other than a…

Bi-Lingual Punk Trio Half/Time Tour Wales

Bi-Lingual Punk Trio Half/Time Tour Wales

Hamilton punk band Half/Time recently performed alongside Welsh artists who sing in Cymraeg as part of a musical cultural exchange, which aimed to spark important conversations about what it means to create pop songs…

Comedian Melanie Bracewell Living the Dream

Comedian Melanie Bracewell Living the Dream

Describing her work with Australian comic Tim McDonald on The Cheap Seats, Auckland-born Melanie Bracewell says with self-effacing charm, “Tim brings a lot of hard work, determination and vision; I bring vibes.” The 27-year-old…

Benee Speaks to Interview from New LA Home

Benee Speaks to Interview from New LA Home

Auckland-born Gen Z leading light Benee, 23, who recently took the stage at Coachella – “a pretty surreal experience,” she says – spoke with Interview magazine from her new apartment in Los Angeles about festival…

Bergendy Cooke Collaborates in Morocco

Bergendy Cooke Collaborates in Morocco

“New Zealand architect Bergendy Cooke has joined forces with Moroccan architect Amine Abouraoui to meticulously craft an earth-sheltered, sculptural retreat that pays homage to the vibrant history of the region,” Nate Storey writes…

Aldous Harding’s Brighton Show Enraptures

Aldous Harding’s Brighton Show Enraptures

“Twenty minutes into Aldous Harding’s set, after a spellbinding version of Treasure, from her 2019 breakthrough album Designer, has provoked a particularly vociferous response from the crowd, she speaks her first words…

SpongeBob Gets the Tami Neilson Effect

SpongeBob Gets the Tami Neilson Effect

The favourite characters of SpongeBob’s underwater town Bikini Bottom are set to be given some Aotearoa flavours next year, Amberleigh Jack reports for Stuff. New Zealand-based artists award-winning Tami Neilson and The Phoenix Foundation…

Eleanor Catton Guest on New York Times Podcast

Eleanor Catton Guest on New York Times Podcast

The New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton, who won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 for her novel The Luminaries, discusses her latest book, Birnam Wood, with New York Times Book Review podcast host Gilbert…

Simone Kessell on Yellowjackets Season 2

Simone Kessell on Yellowjackets Season 2

Adult Lottie is described by a Yellowjackets showrunner as “kind of a cool Jesus” – she’s a charismatic cult leader-like figure who’s also a potential threat to her former teammates, and New Zealander Simone…

THR Puts Two Campion Films on Best of Century List

THR Puts Two Campion Films on Best of Century List

“Over the course of a few months, several Zoom meetings, and countless emails, six Hollywood Reporter (THR) film critics came together to hash out, and rank, what they consider the 50 greatest films since…

Granta Names Eleanor Catton a Best Young Novelist

Granta Names Eleanor Catton a Best Young Novelist

Literary magazine Granta has announced its 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40, which, for the first time, includes international writers who view the UK as home, the BBC’s culture and media…

Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood Does the Improbable

Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood Does the Improbable

“Eleanor Catton’s third novel, Birnam Wood, is a big book, a sophisticated page-turner, that does something improbable: It filters anarchist, monkeywrenching environmental politics, a generational (anti-baby boomer) cri de coeur and a downhill-racing plot…

Kirk Harding’s Bad Habit Label Growing Roster

Kirk Harding’s Bad Habit Label Growing Roster

The self-styled “outsider” label Bad Habit, co-founded in 2015 by New Zealander Kirk Harding and Nigerian-American Matthew “Baus” Adesuyan, has added a live piece to its existing management, publishing and distribution activities, and re-upped…

M3GAN Director Gerard Johnstone on Inspirations

M3GAN Director Gerard Johnstone on Inspirations

With executive producer James Wan and producer Jason Blum already blue skying ideas for sequels, Syfy got on a Zoom with M3GAN director, New Zealander Gerard Johnstone, to ask about his horror sequel involvement,…

Sam Neill’s Memoir a Real Charmer

Sam Neill’s Memoir a Real Charmer

Over almost 50 years, since his big-screen feature debut in Landfall, made in New Zealand, the beloved New Zealand actor who became Sir Sam last year, has brought a charm to many of his…

Atamira’s Te Wheke Debuts at NY’s Joyce Theater

Atamira’s Te Wheke Debuts at NY’s Joyce Theater

“Founded in 2000 in New Zealand, Atamira fuses Māori cultural expression with contemporary dance theatre. There’s an admirable integrity to how the group doesn’t explain much to the uninitiated,” New York Times…

In the Studio with Painter Angela Heisch

In the Studio with Painter Angela Heisch

New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based artist Angela Heisch takes inspiration from organic forms and patterns in nature for her luminous, abstract paintings. Her solo exhibition ‘Low Speed Highs’ at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London (through 29…

Actor Simone Kessell Seeing Industry Change

Actor Simone Kessell Seeing Industry Change

Playing adult Lottie in the second season is a breakout moment for the New Zealand-born actor Simone Kessell – but like her accomplished co-stars, she’s been here all along, on shows like…

The Tattooist of Auschwitz Is Coming to TV

The Tattooist of Auschwitz Is Coming to TV

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, the bestselling novel by New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based writer Heather Morris is being turned into a six-part television series, Karl Quinn reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. The production is currently shooting…

Katherine Mansfield, A Magician with Words

Katherine Mansfield, A Magician with Words

American author Roberta Silman reviews Claire Harman’s new biography of Katherine Mansfield, All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything, for The Art Fuse. Silman speculates,…

The Examined Life of Melanie Lynskey

The Examined Life of Melanie Lynskey

In series like Yellowjackets, New Plymouth-born actor Melanie Lynskey specialises in revealing the turbulent emotions of women who seem innocuous and mild on the surface, Alexis Soloski writes in a profile piece for The…

Mansfield’s “Bliss” considered a “paragon of modernist literature”

Mansfield’s “Bliss” considered a “paragon of modernist literature”

“Influence in writing is often spoken about as something dirty or shameful, something to be avoided, but here it offers a way for artists to connect across decades, to find courage and company outside…

Cocaine Bear is Actually Allan Henry

Cocaine Bear is Actually Allan Henry

The cocaine bear in Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is an impressive feat of visual effects wizardry, but there was an actual person behind the 227-kilogram, drug-addicted beast, and that person was New Zealander Allan…

Reading Bliss and Bending Time with a New Story

Reading Bliss and Bending Time with a New Story

“Now widely anthologised, taught, and considered a paragon of modernist literature, ‘Bliss’ seems to prove what we have discovered as editors of NOON – that a story that generates powerful feeling,…

Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller

Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller

“It’s taken  Eleanor Catton 10 years to follow up on her Booker Prize winning novel of 2013, The Luminaries. Fortunately, her latest offering, Birnam Wood, begins with a bang, quite literally. A series of…

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

The Paris Opera Ballet has named New Zealand’s Hannah O’Neill as a new star dancer, a rarity as a non-French dancer in the world’s oldest ballet company, France 24 reports. Tokyo-born O’Neill, 30, is one…

Musician Jen Cloher Embraces Māori Heritage

Musician Jen Cloher Embraces Māori Heritage

With haka chants and ancient proverbs, Australian musician Jen Cloher connected deeply with Māori culture for their new album, I Am the River, The River Is Me – another personal reckoning after understanding their…

Max Gimblett Shows in San Francisco: The Beginning of Time

Max Gimblett Shows in San Francisco: The Beginning of Time

New Yorker and New Zealander Max Gimblett has opened his latest exhibition The Beginning of Time at leading contemporary gallery Hosfelt in San Francisco. In the spirit of impermanence –…

How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun

How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun

When the New Zealand indie label Flying Nun got a chance to record a live album by Manchester band the Fall, the tensions fraying the group almost destroyed the record company – as documented…

Melanie Lynskey Analyses Last of Us Character

Melanie Lynskey Analyses Last of Us Character

When The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin pitched a role in the series to New Zealand-born actor Melanie Lynskey, he started with a bang: “He called me and said, ‘I would love for…

Eleanor Catton’s Latest Has a Serious Message

Eleanor Catton’s Latest Has a Serious Message

It has been 10 years since New Zealander Eleanor Catton became, at 28, the youngest writer to be awarded the Booker prize, Lisa Allardice writes in a profile piece for The Guardian. Her third…

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

“Crowded House is a band that initially won listeners over with their undeniable wit and oddball charm,” American Songwriter’s Alli Patton writes in an article, which recommends the band’s top ten best songs. “The New…

Our Musical Counterculture Like No Other

Our Musical Counterculture Like No Other

“Cut off from the ‘swinging’ innovations of 60s London, a generation of New Zealand musicians forged an underground scene that propelled the nation’s modern identity,” Garth Cartwright writes for The Guardian. “For a nation now…

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

“What a strange and spellbinding psychological thriller has woven out of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Eileen,” Hollywood Reporter reviewer David Rooney writes. “Rippling with sly humour and a bold command of the tropes…

On the Brilliance of Katherine Mansfield

On the Brilliance of Katherine Mansfield

“The Katherine Mansfield Memorial Garden is a peaceful, oblong-shaped park set in the midst of Thorndon, in Wellington. It is named after the city’s most famous daughter, the short story writer Katherine Mansfield, whose…

The Artist Thomas Monckton Wonderfully Funny

The Artist Thomas Monckton Wonderfully Funny

“Thomas Monckton has been performing his circus-informed, clown-honed show The Artist since 2017, and it shows. This physical theatre performance, now in its final outing at Sydney Festival following a successful season at…

Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch

Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch

In a new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, the magazine takes a look at some rising Aotearoa artists who are looking to impress in 2023 and beyond. It may still be an uncertain time for…

Gibbs Farm Alive with Gravity-Defying Sculptures

Gibbs Farm Alive with Gravity-Defying Sculptures

“The Gibbs Farm sculpture park collection brings together some staggering outdoor sculptures in North Auckland,” Ocula magazine reports. “The vast majority of sculptures commissioned for the park – works by Anish Kapoor, Andy Goldsworthy, and…

Simone Kessell Discusses Her Yellowjackets Role

Simone Kessell Discusses Her Yellowjackets Role

In a Vanity Fair exclusive first look at adult Lottie Matthews (one of the Yellowjackets plane crash survivors), New Zealand-born actor Simone Kessell, 47, discusses where she’s been and asks, “How long can you…

Kimbra on the Ups and Downs of Fame

Kimbra on the Ups and Downs of Fame

At just 21, the New Zealand musician Kimbra became famous for her part in smash-hit duet Somebody That I Used to Know. So what happened after? The Guardian’s Katie Cunningham checks in with the…