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Arts
Simon Denny Weighs in on Blockchain and Art
From verification tools for provenance and authenticity to new approaches to art collecting and even new art forms, blockchain’s impact on the art world is already undeniable. During this…
Wagnerian Superstar Simon O’Neill in Edinburgh
The best of Bernstein, Brahms, Hungarian classical and Wagner’s Ring Cycle are among the classical highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, and Ashburton-born opera singer Simon O’Neill, 47,…
Who is Dark Tourist Host David Farrier?
If you can’t get enough of quirky documentaries on Netflix then you might want to check out Dark Tourist, hosted by New Zealander David Farrier, suggests Caroline Westbrook writing…
Meet Travel Blogger Tara Povey
New Zealand-born Tara Povey, a former pharmacist, runs her blog, whereistara.com from her home in Dublin. She talks to Denise O’Donague from the Irish Examiner about her career shift,…
Photojournalist Wade Goddard’s New Croatian Mission
New Zealand-born photojournalist Wade Goddard, who in 2003 set up the War Photo Limited gallery in Dubrovnik, Croatia, has had a hand in opening the country’s first crowdfunded museum…
Fire in Cardboard City Extremely Realistic
“The clever and freewheeling nine-minute animated short Fire in Cardboard City, directed by Phil Brough, which had its US debut at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, is…
Melanie Lynskey Stars in Stephen King Thriller
“Castle Rock is a giant basket of Easter eggs for King people, but for the rest of us it’s a decent show layered with supernatural secrets waiting to…
Parris Goebel and ReQuest Stars of Ciara’s Latest
New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel and ReQuest Dance Crew have collaborated with Atlanta-bred pop star Ciara for the music video of her latest single, the “empowering anthem”, ‘Level Up’.
“The…
Even Bigger Steven Adams Wows in San Diego
For four days during the annual Comic-Con, the San Diego Convention Center is a treasure trove of everything pop culture fans love: comics, super heroes, super villains, video games,…
Graduate Aïcha Wijland Wins London Design Award
University of Otago advertising graduate Aïcha Wijland says rebellious student culture was behind her edgy, award-winning redesign of classic cartoon character Beryl the Peril – the female equivalent of…
Wax Chattels Pursue Post-Punk with Manic Fervour
“There are few record labels out there that have come to define an entire country’s quality independent music output. Flying Nun Records did that for New Zealand,” Adam McKinney…
Marlon Williams on His Writing Process
The most popular and persistent myth attached to the songwriting process is that artists are driven by an absolute, desperate need to do it. As cliché has it, there’s…
Author Eleanor Catton on the Books That Changed Her
New Zealand Booker Prize-winning novelist Eleanor Catton recently spoke with The Guardian on the crackpot astrological study she’d like to write, and the book she finds “dishonest, pious and…
Leslie Bowman Part of West End Antidote to Trump
Through the story of 18th-century Founding Father of America, Alexander Hamilton, and the American Wars of Independence, blockbuster stage musical Hamilton is fiercely relevant today, and especially last week,…
How Lorde Defied Misogyny and Expectations
It is a just over a year ago since the release of Lorde’s second album, Melodrama. Ordinarily, a retrospective would be premature, but Melodrama already merits one, according to…
National Geographic to Feature Whanganui River
When the Whanganui River was given legal personhood Danish freelance photographer Mathias Svold was so intrigued by the headlines that he went to Washington DC in the United States…
Ruban Nielson Talks Music & NZ Artists
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s “lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Ruban Nielson takes influence from a diverse group of artists ranging from Stevie Wonder to punk act the Buzzcocks to musical iconoclast Frank Zappa,”…
Andrew Niccol’s Truman Show 20 Years On
Jim Carrey, Peter Weir, New Zealand-born screenwriter Andrew Niccol, Laura Linney, and Sherry Lansing thought their paranoid dramedy The Truman Show seemed absurd – until life began to imitate…
Anna Paquin: “You Don’t Do It for Fame, Finance or Glory”
“Sitting down with Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge, Paquin discussed the release of her newest independent movie at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic.” Tara…
Ali Smith Marvels at Katherine Mansfield’s Letters
New Zealand novelist Kirsty Gunn was in London recently listening to Scottish author Ali Smith talk about Katherine Mansfield. Gunn’s article about the event appears in The Scotsman.
“ talk,…
Two NZ Comedians Part of Netflix Global Comedy Event Series
Netflix “is launching an international stand-up comedy event series that will feature 47 comedians from 13 regions”. New Zealand comedians Urzila Carlson and Cal Wilson are part of the…
Taika Waititi Reveals Details of ‘Jojo Rabbit’
New Zealand “director Taika Waititi has revealed more details of his upcoming projects Jojo Rabbit and Bubbles.” Orlando Parfitt reports for Screen Daily.
“Waititi told Screen…
Cellist Yuuki Bouterey-Ishido Exhilarates
“On the last flaming day of June, a packed Lancaster Town Hall stood at the end to acclaim another Haffner Orchestra’s triumphant summer concert. The star of the show…
Ashleigh Young Turns a Lyrical Eye
“When I uprooted my family from Seattle this year to move to Wellington, I knew little of the foreign, faraway place beyond its reputation for grey days and great…
Soprano Claire Egan Makes Violetta Her Own
Understudies rarely get the opportunity to have their names in bright lights, but a sequence of mishaps at the UK’s Longborough Festival Opera gave New Zealand-born soprano Claire Egan, 34,…
Thomasin McKenzie a Force of Nature
Might Debra Granik’s latest film launch New Zealand actress Thomasin McKenzie into the same stratosphere as the Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence? Vanity Fair investigates.
Granik’s work feels like a salve to…
Yellow Is Forbidden Auckland Premiere
After premiering to fantastic reviews at Tribeca Film Festival, New York, Pietra Brettkelly’s Yellow Is Forbidden will be shown in Auckland at the upcoming New…
Ink Artist Steve Butcher’s Latest Eerily Lifelike
Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor has been immortalised in a brilliantly detailed tattoo by famed ink artist, Aucklander Steve Butcher.
Butcher spent 12 hours on the…
Dance Prodigy Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson in Houston
The past year has been a whirlwind of events for professional ballet dancer Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson, Jonathan Guildford writes for Stuff.
The Christchurch-born ballet prodigy has started his first professional job…
New Netflix Show for Tickled’s David Farrier
“If you’re a weird-documentary fetishist, you’re probably already obsessed with Tickled, an unbelievably strange saga featuring underground ‘tickle cells’ and a scheming, shadowy figure who spends thousands of dollars…
Rare ISS Moon Shot Captured by Josh Kirkley
Auckland amateur astrophotographer Josh Kirkley captured a shot so unusual the cameraman can be heard gasping as he films clip. Kirkley describes his “shock” at capturing footage of the…
Billy Apple in Hong Kong and in Focus
To present 21 works in Hong Kong, spanning approximately six decades (1962–2018), is an unusual occasion for Billy Apple, a groundbreaking New Zealand-born artist whose pop-infused conceptual practice is…
J-Law-Like Rise of Thomasin McKenzie
This January, Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik returned to Sundance, to premiere her follow-up narrative feature, Leave No Trace. And she again brought with her a precocious talent in…
Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s Latest: Wellington Paranormal
“Police officers try to solve New Zealand’s most absurd paranormal and supernatural cases in Waititi and Clement’s new comedy series Wellington Paranormal,” which is the first of a handful…
Matt Arbuckle to Exhibit at Melbourne Art Fair
Auckland artist Matt Arbuckle is one of six artists featured in Grazia Australia as “most exciting emerging artists exhibiting as part of the Melbourne Art…
Slow Down With Low-Key Drama ‘Leave No Trace’
“Purposefully slow cinema can be a welcome respite from the craziness in both our world and multiplexes,” writes Linsey Bahr in an article for The…
Busy Year for Artist Ronnie van Hout
Ronnie van Hout might need to learn to say no. Not only is the New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist about to receive the first major solo exhibition at the new…
Ashleigh Young’s Essays Praised in New Yorker
Wellington writer Ashleigh Young’s debut essay collection Can You Tolerate This? is New Yorker-recommended summer reading.
“Two things happened the first week I moved to New York, in February. I…
Academic Peter Fleming’s Earthy Economics
Peter Fleming, an amiable-sounding New Zealander, professes for a living at the Cass Business School at City University London. Once, business schools taught accounting, finance, and profit-and-loss. Nowadays the institutions seem…
Kimbra & DAWN’s ‘Version of Me’ A Vision of Solidarity
“When New Zealand singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Kimbra dropped her third album, Primal Heart this past spring, it proved to be a cohesive marriage of her best ideas to-date,”…
Save Australia’s Ugly Animals with Zoë Bell
Australia’s Wilderness Society has launched ‘Save Ugly’ – a radical new conservation campaign to raise awareness of all the ‘ugly’ creatures that help make life possible, warts and all. To…
NZ Museum Exhibition Includes Unusual Feature
New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki museum is “aiming to offer visitors a realistic glimpse of the perils the first European settlers had to endure on their voyage to the Pacific…
Katherine Mansfield Portrait 100 Years On
The well-known portrait of New Zealand’s greatest writer, Katherine Mansfield, is 100 years old. It was painted by the American artist Anne Estelle Rice. At that time, Mansfield and…
Bassist Matt Penman’s Collection Balanced and Fluid
Originally from New Zealand, bassist Matt Penman has lived in New York since 1995. His new collection, Good Question is reviewed by Mike Hobart for the Financial Times.
According to Hobart,…
Jane Campion’s the Piano Still Hits All The Right Notes
“Rereleased after 25 years, this literary work about a mute woman in 19th-century New Zealand remains full of extraordinary images and enigmas,” writes Peter Bradshaw in a review in…
Jane Campion on Why She Went Back to the Lake
Top Of The Lake: China Girl’s Jane Campion talks to film magazine Screen Daily about the importance of telling stories from a female point of view.
“Motherhood is a very…
New Zealand Ad Genius On Show in Cannes
“Once again”, Down Under will be “well represented” at this year’s Cannes Lions, according to Doug Zanger writing for American trade magazine Adweek.
“Going through the list of Cannes Lions…
Berlin-Based Zac Langdon-Pole on Art Journey
Art Basel has announced that the New Zealand-born, Berlin-based artist Zac Langdon-Pole, 30, is the winner of the BMW Art Journey. An international jury unanimously selected Langdon-Pole from a…
Q&A with Instapoet Star Hera Lindsay Bird
Acclaimed by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, as “the most arresting and original new young poet”, New Zealander Hera Lindsay Bird, 31, is one of the stars of…
Photographer Cody Ellingham Dreams in Danchi
Art director and photographer Cody Ellingham has explored over 40 “architectural giants” in Tokyo’s Danchi complex, capturing the apartments for a new series, Danchi Dreams.
Ellingham’s…
London’s Calling in First Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines
The first full trailer for Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines has been released, reports Abid Rahman for The Hollywood Reporter. In the…
On Stage at London’s All Points East with Lorde
New Zealand super star Lorde’s recent performance at London’s inaugural All Points East festival incited “sheer pandemonium”, according to DIY magazine.
“Lorde follows on the North Stage,…
Yoson An Cast in Mulan Live-Action Movie
“New Zealander Yosan An has joined Disney’s live-action movie Mulan as the main love interest Chen Hongui opposite Liu Yifei (also known as Crystal Liu) who is playing Hua…
UMO Frontman Ruban Nielson on Musical Eclecticism
In search of a new direction after three critically acclaimed psychedelic indie rock records, 38-year-old New Zealander Ruban Nielson, frontman of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, took to the road to…
Breaking up Is Easy for Sami and van Beek
Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek’s film The Breaker Upperers has opened strongly in New Zealand after warm-hearted reviews at the South by Southwest festival in Texas. This week,…
It: Chapter Two Casts Jay Ryan as Adult Ben
Auckland-born actor Jay Ryan, 36, has been cast as the adult version of Ben Hanscom in New Line’s It: Chapter Two, sources confirmed to Variety.
Ryan joins Jessica Chastain, James…
