Culture Etc.

CULTURE COMPASS

Culture Compass

7th August, 2025

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The Culture Compass 24th July 2025If 2025 is teaching us anything, it’s that while chaos and turmoil run rampant, art in all its forms will remain. But still, like air, I’ll rise. Over the coming weeks, there are some spectacular examples of art and culture rising, including three unique festivals…

Culture Compass

The Culture Compass 10th July 2025While film fanatics patiently bide our time waiting for the New Zealand International Film Festival to roll around (tickets are on sale now), we must find other ways to keep dark existential musings at bay and the creative synapses firing. Here is our selection of…

The Culture Compass

The Culture Compass 26th June 2025We may be on the precipice of the July school holidays, but this week's Culture Compass will not be defined by them. Iconoclastic as always, here lies a selection of thought-provoking, cerebral, creative and entertaining arts and cultural events taking place across the motu. Most…

Culture Compass

Culture Compass 12th June 2025The culture compass in Aotearoa is firmly pointed towards the North East right now as the nation awaits the grand arrival of the Matariki cluster. Throughout the motu there are events and celebrations to honour the Māori New Year, some of which were highlighted in our…

Culture Compass

THE CULTURE COMPASS - Mānawatia Matariki! 29th May 2025The rise and rise of Matariki as a national celebration has been the best thing to happen to winter - and Aotearoa - since the arrival of the electric blanket. Among the many grim errors of colonisers was the steamrolling of established…

Culture Compass

Oliver Stretton-Pow, Hard Graft Mark II, 2025 Culture Compass May 1, 2025 Around ngā mōtu there is art, film, comedy and literature - here’s our guide to lightning the weight of the times.In heavy times like these, one could be fooled into thinking that going to a show or exhibition…

Culture Compass

The Culture Compass 17th April 2025 This week’s Culture Compass is an Easter basket of art, comedy, music and environmental nightwatch. Consume in moderation.The collective cultural compass might currently point toward egg shells with their insides blown out for Easter crafts or baked goods that commemorate Jesus’ brutal execution but…

Culture Compass

Royal Albatross, Dunedin Culture Compass April 3, 2025 April ushers in the end of daylight saving - though daylight savouring might be a more uplifting name, less desperate grasping of the light and more radiating abundance. Now it’s over, it’s time to take the hand of someone you love -…

Culture Compass

Culture Compass 20th March 2025 Everything you need to know about arts, events, books, activism and activities around ngā motuWe're increasingly getting our cultural engagement through the device in our hand, our souls sucked into the phone and existing there, disembodied, like genies trapped in a digital urn until a…

The family album

Interdisciplinary artist Stella Brennan remixes archival objects into anti-nostalgic meditations on progress and history. Thread Between Darkness & Light is Brennan’s most personal artwork, and one of her most beautiful. By Theo Macdonald.

Olafur Eliasson: Beyond the limits of perception

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki welcomes a retrospective exhibition from one of contemporary art's great ambassadors for climate consciousness and the capacity of art to affect change.

Christine Jeffs: Making A Mistake

Christine Jeffs latest film, A Mistake, is based on author Carl Shuker’s novel in which a surgeon’s split-second decision leads to dire consequences. Shuker talks to Jeffs about directing Hollywood stars and the love of horses that keeps her home. By Carl Shuke

Photo: Cameron James McLaren.

The word “craft” is deceptive — its meaning and application ambiguous, its definitions multifarious.

CRAFTWORK

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Culture Etc

The first XI

Once a thorn in the side of New Zealand sports media, the Alternative Commentary Collective have become Kiwi sports royalty over the last decade (and a year).

Man of Letters

A conversation with painter Julian Hooper. By Theo Macdonald.

Late bloomers and buttocks

Guy Somerset kicks off his new North & South column on reading the backlist with the genius of Barbara Anderson

Perfect pictures

Perfect Pictures By Theo Macdonald Let’s cut to The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966). For the past five years, the New Zealand International Film Festival has been lost in The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980). Long-term leader Bill Gosden passed away in 2020, 2021’s Auckland leg was rudely cancelled by COVID-19 (We…

Surf’s up

Surf’s up. By Nadia Shaw-Owens

I Can Never Express My Angels

For the first time, the life of New Zealand’s greatest painter, Colin McCahon, has been revealed in his own words. DAVID HERKT interviews Peter Simpson, who explains just why this matters. By David Herkt

My first ever… Rhodes Scholar

Damon Salesa’s deep pacific roots and groundbreaking scholarship have shaped his remarkable life; however his first primary school teacher also likes to lay a claim to his success. Susana Andrew.

Retirement Essentials

Liv Lewis-Long from Simplicity shares her favourite finance tips for those embarking on the “20-year holiday” we call retirement. By Liv Lewis-Long

From a humble villa to being the vanguard of eye care

From a humble villa to being the vanguard of eye care In 1993, a visionary group of ophthalmologists planted the seeds of what would become Auckland Eye, aiming to create New Zealand’s first subspecialty eye care facility. Their ambition was straightforward yet revolutionary: to offer comprehensive care for all aspects…

Long Exposure

A new book and touring exhibition assembles extraordinary photographs from New Zealand’s colonial history to inspire questions about the faces, places, triumphs and injustices which still influence this fractured nation. By Theo McDonald.

Divine symmetry

In her new exhibition, contemporary artist Julia Morison channels a new source of influence through her otherworldly art practice: the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint. By Theo Macdonald

Less is more

In just over three decades, New Zealand’s lamb export industry has undergone a remarkable transformation. Beef + Lamb New Zealand explains how the industry maximises from less.

Insight Vacations launch small group, women-only tours

Insight Vacations launch small group, women-only tours created for women, by women, to encourage solo travel.

The devil reps pharma

Jarod Rawiri tells North & South about working on Auckland Theatre Company’s latest play, The Effect, written by Succession writer-producer Lucy Prebble.

Foreskin’s Lament

Before puberty, most Filipino boys undergo tuli — traditional circumcision. New Zealand-based writer Joseph Trinidad recalls his own rite of passage. By Joseph Trinidad

The Sound of Violence

Sound designer Johnnie Burn discusses his harrowing experience making the Academy Award-nominated holocaust drama The Zone of Interest. By Theo Macdonald

State of The National

The National have returned after the pandemic and personal struggles with two new albums in 2023, as well a renewed engagement with their backlist. Ahead of their New Zealand tour, Emily Perkins talks to bass player Scott Devendorf. By Emily Perkins

Dare to hope

This Black Caps team have racked up achievements earlier generations could only dream of, but have yet to deliver the test-cricket result their fans crave most. Time to buckle in: the Australians are coming. By John Newton

Exhibitionism

So many artists racking up massive student debt, but where can you go to see what they’ve made of it? Here are the best galleries to cool down in over the dog days of summer.

My first ever…Death threat

When hate mail about a poem inspires more poetry. By Tusiata Avia

Perpetual motion machine

Jess Johnson experiences UFO culture, desert fauna and lots of stray cats on an artist residency in Roswell, New Mexico. By Jess Johnson

Listen Up

If you adore these new releases, why not spread a little financial love to the artists. By Victoria Spence

Saying the quiet part in 72pt font

Renaissance woman Catherine Griffiths tells North & South why she’s fed up with design industry inequity, and what she’s doing to fight it. By Theo Macdonald

Portrait of the artist as a dead man

The massive task of bringing home Bill Culbert’s studio. By Theo MacDonald

National treasures

Pātea, where the Tasman Sea has pummelled and caressed the shoreline for centuries, hosts a hoard of special taonga. By Lindsay Wright

The Don

Don McGlashan this year enjoyed his first number one album in his 40-something-year musical career. By Elisabeth Easther

Into the darkness

Smiling snakes, biblical personalities and pilfered icons inhabit the Arcadian scenes depicted by Laura Williams. By Theo Macdonald

Oppenheimer

“The central icon of the atomic culture,” wrote historian Peter B. Hales, “is the mushroom cloud, rising above the lush tropical atolls of the South Pacific or the wastelands of the Great American Desert.” By Theo MacDonald

The world according to Kharl

Rotorua fashionista Kharl WiRepa has two shows at New Zealand Fashion Week this year, the first showcasing haute couture, the second featuring kapa haka. By Theo Macdonald

The Deepest Breath

A plunge into the extreme sport of freediving, this documentary showcases daring dreams with an undercurrent of danger. By Theo Macdonald

Still not knowable

The unpredictability and challenges of working with clay are what drew artist Emelia French to change her focus from painting to ceramics. By Theo Macdonald

Kicking on

Top women’s football official Sarai Bareman has big hopes for the forthcoming Women’s World Cup. By Theo MacDonald

Horsing around

Dropping in on a remarkable woman and her lifetime collection of equine memorabilia. By Lindsay Wright

The Last Rider

An account of a fascinating slice of sports history demonstrates there’s more to documentaries than just finding the right story. By Theo Macdonald

The Grapevine

New life springs in the battered bay. By Toby Buck

Profile: Fasitua Amosa

After 20 years of prolific and professional acting, Fasitua Amosa’s face and voice have become well-known. By Gabi Lardies

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