KTV: Kinetic Television
Work by pioneering NZ filmmaker, artist, kinetic sculpter and general ‘crazy guy’, Len Lye, is featured in the exhibition ‘A Century of Artists’ Film in Britain’ at the Tate Britain. Lye’s 1930s work is…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Where the Wild Things Are
Boston Herald travel writer recommends the South Island to all thrill-seeking tourists, “whether they prefer their adrenaline rush natural or manmade.” An extensive tour includes Tairoa Head, Arthur’s Pass, Otira Gorge, and the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers….
Iconic Image Auction
A signed photograph of the 1905-6 All Black “Originals” has been sold at auction for $41,000. The photo had been kept in Aucklander David Wright’s family since 1906, when it was presented to his grandfather Charles Victor…
Tremain Mines Our Past
The latest offering from award-winning British author, Rose Tremain, finds its inspiration in mid-19th century NZ and thwarted edge expectations: “We will not cling to familiar ways. We will imagine ourselves reborn over there….
Mrs Speaker …
“Just how a conservative and largely white electorate came to support an outspoken transgendered woman – of Maori (that is, indigenous non-white) descent, no less – is the story behind the remarkably engaging documentary Georgie Girl.” Annie…
How to Remember Sir Peter Blake?
The government has committed $2.5 million to the construction of a memorial museum in the late Sir Peter Blake’s honour on the Auckland waterfront. Sports Minister Trevor Mallard: “The exhibition will ensure a…
Bravo Blumenfield
NZ brand, Blumenfeld, was judged Best International Olive Oil at the LA County Fair Wines of the World Competition – the longest-running, largest and most respected event of its kind in the US. Blumenfeld NZ Classic Blends…
On Father Figures and Wayward Teens
New Scientist profiles the work of Canterbury University psychologist Bruce Ellis, who has recently published a study on the effects of absentee fathers on teenage girls. Ellis has monitored 700 girls from pre-school to high-school, in an…
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
NZer David J. Stevenson – a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology – has a project up his sleeve straight out of science fiction, but grounded in the search for science fact. Stevenson’s proposal – outlined…
Faceless Fame
As the voice of Star Wars: Episode II character Tuan We, NZ actress Rena Owen has added a strange new dimension to her working life. Now based in LA, the Once Were Warriors star…
One of Our Originals
NZ’s oldest Olympic athlete, javelin thrower Stan Lay, has died aged 96. Lay finished in seventh place at the 1924 Athens Olympics, and two years later won gold at the Empire Games in Canada. He was…
New Romantics
Young urban women in NZ and Australia are the target market for a recently re-vamped Mills & Boon series. Publisher Harlequin hopes to snare Sex & The City fans rather than those of…
Bone people a modern classic
Keri Hulme’s the bone people featured in a Guardian poll of the Top 50 novels by women writers. The NZ Booker Prize winner sits alongside Alice Walker’s The Color Purple in the list of…
Christchurch the New Bondi?
Kiwis are coming home to roost according to latest Australian immigration statistics that reveal a dramatic brain-drain reversal: NZers are returning home from Australia at a greater rate than they are arriving. The SMH…
Kiwi gives life to Coppelia
NZer Malcolm Burn was the guest choreographer for Ballet Tech Ohio’s production of Frederic Franklin’s Coppelia. Currently associate artistic director of the Richmond Ballet, Burns’ 25-year career includes stints as a principal dancer for…
People together: NZ re-imagined
CBC critic, Eleanor Watchel, travelled through NZ to interview some of NZ’s literary animals in their natural habitats. The Writers & Company radio special celebrated a literary landscape that included authors Patricia Grace, Bill…
Ballet Bebe
NZ ballet export Bebe Eversfield profiled in the Victoria Times. Now 78, Eversfield won a government scholarship to study at London’s prestigious Sadler’s Wells Company (now the Royal Ballet) and made her Albert Hall…
The art of myth-making
Whale Rider director Niki Caro speaks to The Age about the intricate cultural process involved in a “white woman” making a Maori film. Despite early resistance to her involvement, and her subsequent self-doubt, Caro…
Capturing the uncanny
Works by Wellington based artist Pippa Sanderson are currently on show at Edmonton’s Harcourt House Gallery. Her exhibition, The (Un)heimlich Manoeuvre, references Victorian Spiritualism, haunted houses, and Gothic cinematic aesthetics. Shot on film well…
Tom cruises off
Actor Tom Cruise has bid farewell to Taranaki, the place he called home for the past 4 months. The Hollywood A-lister was on location filming The Last Samurai; an epic-scale production which has proved…
Rats Have Rights Too
Native rats (kiore) on Little Barrier Island were saved from a scheduled DOC extermination by local tribe Ngatiwai, who claimed them as taonga. The rats, now almost extinct on mainland NZ, pose a threat to tuatara…
Sylvester a “Singular Sensation”
Touted as “the black sheep of the fashion flock,” designer Kate Sylvester impressed at Sydney Fashion Week without sacrificing her individual edge. SMH: “Citing New York-based installation artist Vanessa Beecroft as an inspiration, Sylvester…
Whale Raves: Part 2
Whale Rider‘s Australian release has unleashed a second wave of glowing tributes. The Age: ” sharply observed, warm portrayal of a community … of an indigenous people moving between certainties and uncertainties.” Sydney…
Educational Skin Flick
Ta moko features in a Pacific Islanders in Communications documentary for PBS currently screening around the world. Skin Stories explores the art of tattooing, and its cultural significance, in Samoan, Hawaiian and Maori tradition.
“Sex is cheap, but domination isn’t”
Former NZ university lecturer and academic, Jody Hanson, interviewed in The Age on her newfound role as a dominatrix and writer in Melbourne. Known on the dungeon circuit as Mistress J, Hanson conducts seminars,…
Attack of the Warm Fuzzies
Kiwi designers are ahead of the pack in prefiguring the global “mood of softness and warmth” hitting catwalks around the globe. According to the Canberra Times, the “feast of beautiful, well-crafted and intellectual winter…
Sweating in the Name of
Ex-pat Kiwi Richard Stevens likes to do more than his bit for charity. The Belfast resident hopes to raise £2,000 for the Save the Rhinos fund by running both the Belfast and London marathons…
Big Win for Dark Horse
NZ trainer Katrina Alexander shocked bookmakers and delighted racing fans when her “lightly raced” mare Honor Babe won the $800,000 Sydney Cup. The Matamata-based mother of two – who describes herself as “falling into racing by accident”…
Third Culture Kiwi Guides Lodestar
New Zealander Tim Radford (the “doyen” of UK science editors) is the Guardian‘s science editor and recently introduced their new weekly science supplement, Life. Radford has been the paper’s general science editor since 1988, as well as…
For Him
Winemaker Kim Crawford’s “Pansy” has been released in the UK following its overwhelming success on the NZ gay market. The cabernet blend was commissioned by the owner of Auckland gay bar, SPQR, who had witnessed the popularity…
NZ Firm on Pacific Principles
Drawing on NZ’s historical role in the setting up of the UN charter and as an advocate of multilateralism, Helen Clark (described as “one of Tony Blair’s closest foreign political allies”) told the Guardian that the…
Whale riding on east (and west) coast
NYTimes’ critic Elvis Mitchell praises Niki Caro’s Whale Rider as having the “inspired resonance of found art wickedly absorbing”, and the quiet charisma of actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.The film along with fellow NZ…
Celebrating Kiwi-ness
Countless international critics have praised the universal themes explored in Niki Caro’s Whale Rider; what a reviewer for the Age finds most impressive is its quintessential Kiwi-ness. “Whale Rider sounds like it could be…
Breaking Waves
The Auckland-based team set to compete in Australia’s National Basketball League has been christened the New Zealand Breakers, after consultations with players and public. According to Tall Blacks star Pero Cameron – who has been lured…
D’Acclaimed funny-man
Kiwi comedian Tarun Mohanbhai has taken his acclaimed one-man show – D’Arranged Marriage – across the Tasman, with high-profile stints at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Sydney Opera House. Mohanbhai made his name…
Variation the key to “Briwi’s” success
NZ born popster Daniel Bedingfield profiled in the Philippine Star. “You know how an artist will go to great lengths to maintain his style and keep some elements of his first hit in all…
Tastefully turning heads
Turner NZ restaurant – serving up an all-Kiwi array of food and wine – stands out in the sea of Italian, Asian and American cuisines on offer in Southern California. Says an enthusiastic reviewer…
Kiwi Homme
Following Hunter and Bax Henry Hargreaves is the latest Kiwi clothes hanger to attract the lens’ attention on the international fashion circuit. The New York based model has campaigns for Lacoste, Prada, Kenzo and…
Peter Robinson: “Migrateur”
Artist Peter Robinson, exhibiting in Berlin, described in ArtForum as ” the profile of the artist as a global player … a migrateur in the emphatic sense.” Aware of his edge exoticism but fused…
Deluxe Drop
Christchurch brewer Dux de Lux was awarded the grand champion trophy at this year’s Australian international beer awards. The brand’s Nor’wester Pale Ale was judged best brew out of a record field of 590 beers from 22…
Little Brother
New Zealand ranks near the top in an international index ‘Ranking the Rich’, published by Foreign Policy and the Centre for Global Development, gauging how rich nations help out poorer nations. NZ toppped the list with The…
Frankly Fascinating
Mike Moore’s A World Without Walls hailed as a fascinating, candid and paradoxical account of ideals versus bureaucracies in Foreign Affairs magazine. “When all is said and done, believes democratically elected governments and markets will respond…
Possum Bourne Mourned
Rally champion Peter “Possum” Bourne, who died April 30th (aged 47), has been praised as “a humble man with rare ability, a relentless competitor who inspired a new generation of drivers.” “The most successful rally driver in…
Singing London
Victoria University graduate Wendy Dawn Thompson has won the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Competition for singing, earning nearly $30,000, a website and a recital at London’s Wigmore Hall. She is currently studying at the Royal…
FAQ: “Why (oh God, why)?”
NZer Simon Jansen profiled as online icon of the week in The Scotsman‘s “lazy guide to net culture.” Jansen is a master of asciimation; making moving pictures out of letters, numerals and punctuation marks….
Street Eyes
Pavement regular, fashion and portrait photographer Derek Henderson, is showing at Sydney’s 2010 gallery. The images in the collection, entitled with sweet melancholy, I Don’t Feel Alone, are described as, “contemporary landscapes and cultural…
Rock’n’roll Road Trip
The Datsuns continue their successful courtship of the US music scene, earning rave reviews across the country. Boston Globe: “It’s a high-energy assault with mammoth guitar riffs, strutting bass and raw vocals that cartwheel…
Boyd baffles in London
The Guardian art critic admits defeat in his attempts to explain Boyd Webb’s short film – Horse and Dog – currently on show at London’s Estorick Collection. Adrian Searle: “Immune to Webb’s enigmas and…
Te Maori ki Te Ao – Paratene on Patriarchy
In an interview with SMH, Whale Rider star Rawiri Paratene discusses patriarchy – both within and outside of Maoridom – and the universal appeal behind the heart and award-winning film. “I think Maori stories well told can…
Whistle-stop NZ
Lonely Planet experts offer Brits-in-need a two week itinerary of NZ. Reader response: “A two week(!) trip to NZ? We’re UK bird-watchers who have just spent three months there. It’s far too short a time…”
Pavlova Paradise?
Observer offers a how-to guide to buying property in NZ in its assessment of the global property market’s latest hot spot. According to their sources, “screen gods and goddesses are buying up idyllic island…
X-factor
Anna Paquin featured in New York Daily News, one of numerous high-profile interviews given during her hectic promotional tour for X-Men 2. Currently finishing an English major at Columbia between films, Paquin’s next plan…
Life on the (Geological) Edge
Times of India lists NZ as its readers’ third most popular summer holiday destination. “The ice age carved the exquisite fretwork of Fiordland and the Marlborough Sounds, huge tectonic forces pushed up the Southern Alps and volcanism…
Karen at the Cutting-edge
Work by leading NZ fashion designer Karen Walker is currently on show at Seattle’s Bellevue Art Museum. Walker is featured alongside fellow rule-breakers John Galliano, Issey Miyake and Alexander McQueen in Fashion: The Greatest…
Two-ton Fleming Squashes Records
A testament to leading by example, Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming hit a career-best 274 not out in the first Test against Sri Lanka. Fleming’s total is the second highest test score ever made by a…
In His Father’s Image, The Shadow of a Mountain
Peter Hillary interviewed about his own Everest experience and his part in the filming of National Geographic‘s documentary, Surviving Everest. “Our challenge was not just to climb, but to make the film about the…
