Event noticeboard: Bread sculptures, celebrity choirs and camembert
The Spinoff's top picks of events from around the motu.
When I read that Alex Casey turns to self-help book The Artist's Way when she feels herself Animorphing into that monstrous 3D modelled remote worker, I knew I needed it – office life is no less monstrous. On Saturday the book was ready for me to pick up at my local library.
Squinting through my baggy tired eyes each night, I have just made it to the explanation of the artist's date. Julia Cameron wrote that to create, we draw from an 'inner well'. Ideally the well is a reservoir stocked full of trout. Some of the fish are big, fat and ready to eat, while others are babies that need more time. But the well needs upkeep – if we don't give it attention it becomes depleted, stagnant or blocked. There are no more fish. The main tool to nourish the well is the artist date, a two-hour commitment each week to to go somewhere alone (she is strict on solitude). It could be a walk, a visit to the best dump shop in town or any of the following events.
Performance and visual art: Having it all, all, all
Gus Fisher Gallery, 74 Shortland Street, Auckland Central
10am-5pm Tuesday through Friday, 10am-4pm Saturday until May 10
Performance: 1-2pm Saturday, May 10
Free
Saturday is your last chance to see an artwork by one of my very favourite artists, Eva Mendieta. The film on show is from her famous Silueta series, where she carved the shape of her body into natural landscapes and filled it with organic matter like moss, sticks, flowers or grass. She often activated the works with fire, water or blood. There's a modesty to the five-minute video, with its grain and flickers, that adds to the intimacy of the work.
Mendieta is one of nine international artists in the exhibition, bought together because their work was pivotal in the re-evaluation of female subjectivity in art between the 1960s and 1990s. Other key works are Cut Piece by Yoko Ono, Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler, So help me Hannah by Hannah Wilke and Ever is Over All by Pipilotti Rist. It's not all serious – the installation of the works is big, bold and colourful, and many of them are tongue-in-cheek.
On Saturday, local artist Prairie Hatchard-McGill will be staging a one-hour performance called Bread – she will make sculptures out of soft, white loaves!
Northland
Scenic Hotel, 58 Seaview Road, Paihia
10am Saturday, May 10
Kingsgate Hotel Autolodge, 104 Marsden Road, Paihia
1pm Sunday, May 11
At songwriters in the round events, musicians take turns performing songs, usually acoustic, and sharing the stories behind them.
Visual Art: Sculpture Northland
Whangārei Quarry Gardens, 37A Russell Road, Kensington, Whangārei
9am-5pm until Sunday, May 11
$5 – $10
Over 100 sculptures in lush subtropical gardens.
Auckland
Music: Can't Even, album release show, BUB
Neck of the Woods, 155B Karangahape Road, Auckland Central
8pm Thursday, May 8
$20 – $30
Singer-songwriter-comedian-karaoke icon Priya Sami is celebrating the release of an 'emotionally unstable, classic hits debut'. She will be joined by a full band, a 'celebrity choir' and supported by She's So Rad.
A gameshow like no other, Bonetown is hosted by Spinoff fave Brynley Stent. Each night five comedians will join her to battle wits.
Poets Craig Foltz, Alison Glenny and Richard von Sturmer will be accompanied by music from Robert Sly.
Waihī
Muse, 5 Havelock Road, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay
10am-4.30pm Monday – Friday, 10am-3pm Saturday until May 29
Free
Big, celestial paintings that give way to abstract layers of paint up close.
New Plymouth
You simply must go to see and hear the country's biggest heart-throb.
Wellington
War Memorial Library, 2 Queens Dr, Hutt Central, Lower Hutt
2pm Saturday, May 10
Free
A chat between Michael Brown and Lower Hutt-born musician Luke Rowell (Eyeliner/Disasteradio) will be followed by a performance from Eyeliner!
Nelson
Music: Imani-J
Elma Turner Library, 27 Halifax Street, Nelson City
2pm Saturday, May 10
Free
Imani-J sings in English, Te Reo Māori and French, plays guitar, keys and swings between RnB, Neo-Soul and Afro Beat.
Ōtautahi
Music: Brouhaha With Keelty's, Polson, Toronja
'A brand-new free jazz group formed in Ōtautahi that offers ecstatic, burning, tangled webs of improvised sound complete with howling saxophone and guitar effects over a volcanic bass & drums team.'
Ōtepoti
Orokonui Ecosanctuary, 600 Blueskin Road, Dunedin
5pm Saturday, May 10
$60
The sun will be setting, the birds will be flitting around the protected forest, and the strings will be playing powerful, haunting, raw, emotional and sweeping music.
Southland
Film: The Big Bike Film Night
St James Theatre, 61 Irk St, Gore
6.30pm Monday, May 12
SIT Centrestage Theatre, 33 Don St, Invercargill
7pm Tuesday, May 13
$13.50 – $28
Two and a half hours of action, drama, humour and inspiration in the form of short cycling films from around the world.
This week, make a commitment to nourish your well. Ban your boyfriend from coming along and from calling you. See you on the other side.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
14-05-2025
- Scoop
Exhibition Announcement: Because Of Where I Live, Daegan Wells At Gus Fisher Gallery
Press Release – Gus Fisher Gallery Because of where I live 6 June – 30 August Exhibition opening: Friday 6 June, 5.30 – 7.30pm Artist talk: Saturday 7 June, 1pm Gus Fisher Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition by Southland-based artist Daegan Wells in Tāmaki Makaurau. Selected as part of a newly established open-call programme called The Changing Room, Wells' presentation brings the materiality of his Southland surroundings into the gallery through a combination of handwoven textiles and furniture made from locally sourced timber. Since 2018, Wells has lived on his partner'sfamily farm near Riverton. Since the 1800s the farm and surrounding whenua have undergone many stages of evolution, including being the site of one of Aotearoa's earliest gold excavations, home to a large Chinese settlement in the 1870s, and supporting various sawmilling operations. For his presentation at Gus Fisher Gallery, Wells' partner's family farm becomes a case study for gaining insight into the people, industry and processes of the area. Wells has connected with his partner's extended family, interviewing and gathering archives from whānau who grew up on the farm, including residents of the farmhouse from the 1930s and his partner's great-aunt who used to live in the cottage. Drawing on fine craft skills learned locally from rural weavers, Wells has created a collection of household objects inspired by handmade furniture once found in the original 19th century farm cottage. This includes a series of daybeds and a hand-made sheepskin rug, which required the artist to learn how to tan and process leather for the first time. Learning new skills such as tanning leather speaks to a specificity of place, and methods of regeneration and renewal that can be commonplace processes for communities living rurally. For Wells, site and the politics of place have been a constant thread in the development of his practice, with this project emerging as a strong need to engage with and understand his surroundings. As part of the display, Wells has created a video drawing on existing stories, oral histories, photographs and fragmented archival documents. The resulting work extends the artist's research into the area where he lives, offering insight into the intersecting histories, persons, places and events that make up the place he calls home. He recalls: 'In early 2024, while walking, I found a Pakohe Toki half-buried and only visible in the rocky coastal soil of the rural Southland farm where I live with my partner. I took the Toki to the local rūnaka for advice on what to do with such a precious artefact. This led to a serendipitous encounter with a kaumatua from Ōraka-Aparima, who blessed the toki with a karakia in the car park of our tiny local Supervalue. The discovery of this long buried taonga and its repatriation has led me to reflect deeply upon the history of this place that I call home and the events that have shaped and defined it. ' – Daegan Wells.
Scoop
14-05-2025
- Scoop
Exhibition Announcement: Because Of Where I Live, Daegan Wells At Gus Fisher Gallery
Because of where I live 6 June – 30 August Exhibition opening: Friday 6 June, 5.30 – 7.30pm Artist talk: Saturday 7 June, 1pm Gus Fisher Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition by Southland-based artist Daegan Wells in Tāmaki Makaurau. Selected as part of a newly established open-call programme called The Changing Room, Wells' presentation brings the materiality of his Southland surroundings into the gallery through a combination of handwoven textiles and furniture made from locally sourced timber. Since 2018, Wells has lived on his partner'sfamily farm near Riverton. Since the 1800s the farm and surrounding whenua have undergone many stages of evolution, including being the site of one of Aotearoa's earliest gold excavations, home to a large Chinese settlement in the 1870s, and supporting various sawmilling operations. For his presentation at Gus Fisher Gallery, Wells' partner's family farm becomes a case study for gaining insight into the people, industry and processes of the area. Wells has connected with his partner's extended family, interviewing and gathering archives from whānau who grew up on the farm, including residents of the farmhouse from the 1930s and his partner's great-aunt who used to live in the cottage. Drawing on fine craft skills learned locally from rural weavers, Wells has created a collection of household objects inspired by handmade furniture once found in the original 19th century farm cottage. This includes a series of daybeds and a hand-made sheepskin rug, which required the artist to learn how to tan and process leather for the first time. Learning new skills such as tanning leather speaks to a specificity of place, and methods of regeneration and renewal that can be commonplace processes for communities living rurally. For Wells, site and the politics of place have been a constant thread in the development of his practice, with this project emerging as a strong need to engage with and understand his surroundings. As part of the display, Wells has created a video drawing on existing stories, oral histories, photographs and fragmented archival documents. The resulting work extends the artist's research into the area where he lives, offering insight into the intersecting histories, persons, places and events that make up the place he calls home. He recalls: 'In early 2024, while walking, I found a Pakohe Toki half-buried and only visible in the rocky coastal soil of the rural Southland farm where I live with my partner. I took the Toki to the local rūnaka for advice on what to do with such a precious artefact. This led to a serendipitous encounter with a kaumatua from Ōraka-Aparima, who blessed the toki with a karakia in the car park of our tiny local Supervalue. The discovery of this long buried taonga and its repatriation has led me to reflect deeply upon the history of this place that I call home and the events that have shaped and defined it. ' – Daegan Wells.
The Spinoff
09-05-2025
- The Spinoff
My weekend snooping around Ōtautahi's most famous buildings
Alex Casey goes on an odyssey through some of the most important buildings in Christchurch. Moving to Ōtautahi in the 2020s is a bit like starting a prestige TV show about five seasons in. The budget is massive, the production values slick and shiny, and the reviews are positive, but you still can't escape the fact that you've missed out on pivotal early character building and some truly enormous plot points. As a result, you're left hurriedly searching up things on Wikipedia at social events, nodding along sagely at mentions of vaguely familiar villains (Gerry Brownlee) and collecting morsels of lore like a magpie wherever you can. Can you really ever understand a place if you missed the most galvanising moments in its recent history? And how do you go about backfilling that knowledge and those experiences? I've learned a lot already through telling stories of creativity and community here, be it the miniature rendering of the pre-quake city or the turtle rescuer still caring for quake refugees. But it was a recent deep dive into the Brutalist Timezone and the new stadium at Te Kaha that opened up another crucial (and screamingly obvious) portal to better understanding Christchurch: the buildings as central characters. With that in mind, last weekend I toddled along to Open Christchurch, an architecture festival where the doors are swung open to some of the city's most significant buildings. Where the phrase 'architecture festival' may have previously left me retreating into one of those deep sleep chambers used by Matt Damon in Interstellar, I'd noticed there was a certain buzz around this festival for the past few years and it always seemed to sell out quickly. This year I managed to nab a powerful itinerary, and here is everything I learned from my snooping. Saturday My day began with a tour of College House in Riccarton, a place I had only ever driven past on the way to the airport and assumed, based on the aggro high white concrete walls, was some sort of boring sludge factory. But as we were welcomed in to stand by the crackling fire in the lounge of the student hall, I realised I could not have been more wrong. Deemed by architect Sir Miles Warren as his greatest creation when it opened in the 1960s, College House is still used as swanky University of Canterbury student accommodation to this day. Architect Alec Bruce, who worked on the post-quake renovations, guided us through the courtyard to the Arthur Sims Library, which gave me a chilling bloodlust to study again (especially with texts on display such as Dan Carter's autobiography and 'Pizzas and Pastas'). Beneath rich warm wood panelling and spiral iron staircases, we gazed up at the centrepiece – an enormous web-like structure of dark beams and light fittings. 'Utterly gratuitous and utterly brilliant,' Bruce mused. 'And totally unexpected from the outside.' Same goes for the College House chapel, which would be the first but not the last time I would hear about Gothic Revival (less spooky vibes, more high pitched roofing). Costing $3m to repair post-quake, the chapel was split into six pieces so the ground floor could be restored. 'This is not the sort of building an engineer would let you design post earthquake,' said Bruce. We ended the tour in the ornate art-filled dining hall, which used to have an original Bill Hammond plonked by the coffee machine until they realised how much it was worth. From College House I zipped into the city for a tour of the Observatory Hotel in the Arts Centre, originally built in 1891 and home to the magical Townsend Teece telescope, one of the city's greatest objects. I'd written about the miraculous survival of the ' munched ' telescope during the quakes, but hadn't had the chance to nosey around its surrounds. The entire observatory tower collapsed in 2011 and was, as guide Shane Horgan told us, meticulously reconstructed with every piece of basalt stone numbered and put back in its original place like a jigsaw puzzle. Inside the building, formerly the University of Canterbury's home of astronomy and physics, the original wooden staircase curled towards the heavens. It was still standing when everything collapsed around it, and was taken offsite and kept under a tarp at Christchurch Boys High. The stairs creaked in welcome as we ascended. 'That's a heritage feature,' laughed Horgan. 'Cost a lot of money, by the way.' After a peek at some of the rooms (very flash, very high ceilings) we ended the tour under the mighty telescope, still pointed skyward as it was over 130 years ago. Back on the ground, I sprinted past punters on the river to Te Ara Pū Hā – yet another place I had no idea existed. Modelled on The High Line in New York, this is a four-block stretch of lush green planting that will one day form a forest corridor along the city's edge. Landscape architect Adrian Taylor and cultural advisor Te Marino Lenihan explained that the design was born out of a close working relationship with Ngai Tahu. 'The collaboration was powerful and should be done more often,' said Lenihan. 'This is the blueprint of true treaty partnership.' That idea of treaty partnership was evident on the tour itself, which opened with Taylor doing his pepeha aloud for the very first time – Lenihan encouraging him to go off the cuff – and the group introducing themselves and where they were from. Along the way, Lenihan explained how the rebuild allowed for Ngāi Tahu to have a greater presence in the city. 'Before the quakes, Christchurch was known as the most English city outside of England,' he said. 'We were invisible as mana whenua, so the opportunity was there to put our fingerprints on the future.' Those fingerprints could be found everywhere from the illuminated pounamu tiles to the angular stone seating inspired by purupuru. Wandering down four city blocks, we learned about the dozens of species of native plants on show, including edibles for foraging like pūha and horopito, as well as soon-to-be giants like kahikatea and harakeke. The tour ended with everyone cheersing with a 'mauri ora' before sampling a thimble of Taylor's own artisanal gin, infused with native botanicals from the very same walkway we had just strolled down. As a non-drinker, I rode a light botanical buzz all the way to the Town Hall, chatting with a former architecture lecturer named Jonathan who had travelled from Napier for the festival. He showed me some of the sketches he had been doing around the city, and frequently stopped on the walk to point out how timber framing fire resistance works, or how the gold exterior of Tūranga looks like curtain being drawn open, or the provenance of the word 'keystone' as it relates to the arch on the Heritage hotel. My head was spinning, and not just from the 5ml of horopito gin. We made it inside the Douglas Lillburn Auditorium, renowned for having some of the very best acoustics in the world. I walked onto the very same stage as the Vengaboys and clapped my hands. The sound reverberated powerfully around the entire hall, and I had to resist doing three more claps to the tune of 'Shalala Lala' in tribute to the Eurodance legends. I took a seat in the back row of the hall, exhausted, and watched a little kid in an All Blacks cap take the stage and belt a wobbly bit of the national anthem. Moved to tears, I knew it was time to go home. Sunday The day began with me racing through the labyrinth of fencing in the square to make it inside the Christ Church Cathedral for the 10am tour. Donning hard hats and fluro pink vests, a group of 50 of us were given a brief introduction outside by Carolyne Grant, director of the rebuild project team. 'This is the literal and figurative heart of the city,' she said. 'It took 40 years to build the first time, we hope it is not that long this time.' Widely reported as being 'mothballed' late last year due to a lack of funds, Grant rejected the use of that term. 'It's not mothballed yet: it's paused. And we will need to find a new way forward,' she said. With a heartfelt warning that re-entering the cathedral can feel overwhelming, we quietly stepped inside. One woman instinctively put her hand over her heart as she looked around at the exposed wooden skeleton. Another muttered 'oh, it's so sad' to nobody in particular. People shared stories of the last time they had been inside, including a man who had climbed the steeple a few weeks before the quake, and a woman who had visited the flower show with her Nana just days before. A topiary elephant stood amongst the ruins for weeks, apparently. I admired a large yellow Beyonce-style fan, positioned close to where the altar might have originally been. It constantly secretes a bubblegum-smelling vapour that keeps the pigeons away – the same who famously dropped two tonnes of poo over their decade of squatting. Grant also acknowledged the dozens of stray cats and kittens who lived in the derelict cathedral over the years, and assured us all that they had all been safely rehomed. Now, her attention is focussed on the future: 'we could lose the cathedral if we don't care for it,' she warned. It was very difficult not to be stirred by the sheer scale, emotion and ambition of the cathedral restoration project, already $85 million deep and only one third of the way complete when it was put on ice. Should Christchurch cling on to salvaging the first cathedral ever built in this country? Or cut our losses, let the pigeons back in, and call it an overpriced aviary? I didn't know the answer and I didn't really have time to mull it over – across the square the mayor and Dame Adrienne Stewart were about to cut the ribbon on the brand new Court Theatre. With dust from the cathedral still on my boots, I joined a heaving crowd of radio hosts, Court Jesters and Mark Hadlow, all chomping at the bit to get into the new theatre. 'There is no place like home, so welcome to our new home,' said Dame Stewart. We poured inside, marvelling at all the exposed light wood and rusted exterior, a nod to the temporary location – The Shed – where the Court has operated for over a decade. Kids were doing improv in the rehearsal space, we got to poke around the props (fake eggs! fake pizza!) and look at the costume workroom. 'People make costumes here for their job,' explained one mum to her daughter, whose jaw was on the floor at all the wigs and shiny fabrics. 'You could go to uni and study that.' From the brand new home of theatre to a temporary home of worship, I trotted my dusty boots through Latimer Square to the Transitional 'cardboard' Cathedral. Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and opened in 2013 for just $7 million dollars, there really was quite a lot of cardboard happening everywhere. As I stared up at the 96 cardboard tubes, each weighing 500 kg, that lined the A-Frame building, guide Richard Parker told me that Ban kindly donated the design pro-bono to the city. 'He's an All Blacks supporter, which helps,' he smiled. The very last stop on my tour was Chateau on the Park, a really buzzy hotel designed by Peter Beavan in the 1970s in time for the Commonwealth Games. Tucked away in the bush off Deans Ave – 'you can still walk to Ricky mall from here, but you really feel like you are somewhere else' said guide Ann McEwan – even my half-shut eyes could recognise the high pitched roof as Gothic Revival. There was also a fish-filled moat (?) and two enormous suspended functional cauldrons (?). 'Two of the most bizarre things you will ever find in Christchurch,' McKewan said. As a smiling robot vacuum cleaner parted our tour group like the red sea, I felt like I was finally transcending all sense of time and space. In just 48 hours I had been inside late 1800s Gothic Revival relics, 1960s university halls, 2010s post-quake disaster architecture and a brand new 2020s theatre only a few hours old. I had also seen the future in a newly-planted greenway, the lush results of which none of us will even be around to see. I had sipped botanical gin, picked pūha, clapped on a stage, and learned a lot more about this place than a Wikipedia page could ever offer.
