The fallout from the Mercy Pictures exhibition People of Colour continues to inflame the Aotearoa art world. Here, art writer and former gallerist Sarah Hopkinson attempts to understand the often contradictory values that produced Mercy Pictures, and what the tumult means for the future of the industry. In October I attended the opening of Mercy … Read more
Renting in Wellington can seem like a nightmare, but you just need to look a little harder. We’ve found some of the best-value flats in town. It’s been a long week for Wellingtonians, who’ve had their city shat on multiple times, a burden they didn’t need on top of the literal shit flowing through the … Read more
Linda Burgess on the soundtrack to her life. We drove up to Auckland last month. Our darling Edward, who, if suddenly out of sight, could well be found waving from the roof, was turning four. Unlike the time before, we weren’t turned back at Havelock North, when our phones, and the phones of the friends … Read more
Photographs of tūpuna Māori are fetching top prices at auction houses, with their descendants often forking out to ‘bring them home’. On September 20, 2001, an auction of 300 rare photographic prints and plates was blocked due to protests by Māori activists. The collection, potentially worth at least $150,000, included photographic prints and plates of … Read more
In the first in a series of Wellington-focused food comics, Liliana Mañetto Quick illustrates why she loves Cha, a haven of calm on Courtenay Place.
City Kickboxing’s Eugene Bareman talks to Michelle Langstone about what drew him to the sport, training his fighters during the Covid-19 lockdown, and helping build his beloved gym from the ground up. Portraits by Edith Amituanai. The air inside Auckland’s City Kickboxing gym is heavy with a fug of sweat so thick it feels as … Read more
Shipping delays mean bookstores are placing massive one-off orders rather than sitting back to see what sells. They’ve gone huge on Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land – there are probably enough copies in the country to dam Cook Strait. Luckily, Danyl Mclauchlan writes, it is in fact good. I somehow forgot that Obama could … Read more
Donald Trump has grudgingly accepted that preparations for a White House transition should commence, after weeks of crying fraud, mounting spurious legal challenges and attempting, in effect, a coup d’état. However hapless and distant it might seem, is there the potential for a similar breakdown in New Zealand? Duncan Greive examines our defences and our … Read more
Leonie Hayden gets in her feelings about a shitty day for Māori women. There are days in my job where I feel nothing but hopeful. Like when I think about the work being done by Nuku100, telling the stories of 100 indigenous women. Or I get to wānanga with Donna Kerridge and Ayla Hoeta, or … Read more
Some observers are questioning whether there are sufficient Facebook livestreams to support the goal, writes chief caring correspondent Danyl Mclauchlan Jacinda Ardern has responded to a surge in house prices, concerns about carbon emissions and calls for action on child poverty by pledging to care more about these issues. The pledge comes after a week … Read more
An investigation has found that workers on many palm oil plantations suffer shocking levels of abuse and exposure to chemicals so toxic they can cause miscarriage. But, as Amal Samaha explains, a consumer boycott of the brands that use the oil may not be the answer. Some of New Zealand’s most popular cosmetic products are … Read more
A new New Zealand study offers some important lessons on how the coronavirus can spread aboard an aircraft. One of the good things about New Zealand pursuing an elimination strategy for Covid-19 (aside from the obvious) is that we are able to help answer some of the questions there are about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus … Read more
Belief we tend to associate with the fringes of US society have torn a swathe through Aotearoa’s traditionally easy-going if occasionally oddball community of hippies, yoga teachers, and spiritual festival-goers. From the outside, Joe Nunweek finds out if it will ever be the same. Ady* remembers the night she finally tried to intervene with Eve. … Read more
Today’s central city poonami seals it: Wellington is New Zealand’s capital of crap, reports Emily Writes Wellington city’s shitty problem might be worrying residents but faecal enthusiast Steve Steverson says it couldn’t have come at a better time for those hosting the Annual National Undercarriage Symposium. Steverson said the team behind the poo-fest were thrilled … Read more
A suburban Auckland property home to hundreds of rabbits is causing a stir with neighbours, who have called in the Auckland Council to take control of the situation. Dylan Lewis is surrounded by rabbits, all different sizes and colours. The 51-year-old shares his large Mount Eden home with hundreds of the fluffy creatures, and neighbours … Read more
Just in time for fraud awareness week, a new phishing scam is sweeping through the mobile phones of New Zealand. Alex Braae reports. If you get a text purporting to be from UPS telling you a package is waiting for you, and they just need an unpaid customs charge, don’t click the link. It’s part … Read more
Stuart Nash wants to refocus the tourism industry on high-net-worth individuals. But younger, poorer travellers have much to offer too, writes Alex Braae. Backpackers and freedom campers are easy groups of people to hate. They drive vans with stupid slogans written on them. They’ve got a reputation – possibly unfair – for white-guy dreadlocks and … Read more
Rugby commentator Keith Quinn’s call for rugby players to ‘harden up’ shows how much New Zealand’s macho culture has changed since the days he ruled the airwaves, writes Trevor McKewen, author of the book Real Men Wear Black. I have a confession to make. I am helplessly addicted to the tearjerking TV documentary series Lost … Read more
Speculation surrounding the new Covid-19 community case in Auckland last week has cast a light on the pressure retail and hospitality workers face every day. For New Zealand, a new case of Covid-19 in the community is an alarming event in and of itself. The fact that the source of the transmission was initially a … Read more
As The Crown creeps closer to the present day, its apolitical approach is becoming more of a problem, writes Sam Brooks. Minor spoilers for world history 1977-1990 follow. Another year, another season of The Crown. Ten more hours that mythologise, lionise and tear down the British royal family in expensive fashion, with expensive fashions. The … Read more
Jillian Sullivan lives in a strawbale house in Central Otago’s Ida Valley. This essay, Between Lands, is from Map for the Heart, a new collection blending memoir and environmentalism. There’s a moment on the ferry crossing, mid-journey, when a bird hovering over the charcoal water turns and flies towards us, wings outspread. This bird, mollymawk, … Read more
Each time there’s a new community case, New Zealand draws breath, then sighs with relief as it is contained. It’s long past time we stopped accepting that such a volume of leakage is inevitable, argues Duncan Greive. Yesterday Auckland was delivered news of the most troubling case of Covid-19 in the community since the Americold … Read more
So much has changed since the UK’s last lockdown earlier this year, writes New Zealander in London George Fenwick – but also, not much at all. My bike got stolen the weekend before Lockdown 2. I’d been enjoying a last hurrah with friends at a local pub, and was three pints deep when we emerged … Read more
Yesterday’s celebrations over Donald Trump’s election loss were a rare moment of unalloyed joy in what has been a miserable year. But the happiness was tempered with fear for a bitterly divided nation, writes New York-based New Zealander Tess McClure. It is 11.31am when Harlem erupts. Down the street, I hear a woman scream. A … Read more
As we reach the welcome conclusion of Trump’s 2020 campaign, one of the most bizarre in recent history, Stewart Sowman-Lund takes a peek behind the curtain of three of New Zealand’s own chaotic campaigns. ‘Mike… fuck,” says Jeremy Greenbrook-Held, drawing out the “fuck” like someone with a story to tell. The “Mike” he’s referring to … Read more
When it comes to Lynx-flavoured Mountain Dew gaming chips, everyone asks why – but nobody asks how. Don Rowe investigates a culinary mystery. Following the release of any number of Frankenstein’s monsters of food and beverages, the nation resounds with a groaning “why?”. It’s a fair question. Why should milk taste like pineapple lumps, or … Read more
A prayer for a woman with dementia, this fictional piece by Cambridge writer Tracey Slaughter features in the new edition of Landfall. She will forget the house. It will leave her one window at a time, breaking off in pieces of pine and lace and quartered glass. She will forget the feel of the rooms … Read more
In the days leading up to election day, fear and uncertainty ripple through America. Tess McClure, a US-based New Zealand journalist, reports on the mood from Pennsylvania and New York. When I walk through my neighbourhood in Harlem, the leaves are off the trees. They congeal, yellowing in the gutter. I am walking to the … Read more
One of the world’s foremost experts on mass psychogenic illness teaches high school in Auckland. Josie Adams spent an afternoon learning what a psychogenic illness is. Robert E. Bartholomew lives in an old hotel in Flat Bush in south-east Auckland. He has a swimming pool used principally by frogs, and a shelf full of UFO … Read more