Author: johndpart

Arts reviewer for thirty years with the National Business Review

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Slow Burn: Women and Photography

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Slow Burn Ahi Tāmau 

Lissa Mitchell

Te Papa Press

RRP $35.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Slow Burn Ahi Tāmau presents a range of photography by women and non-binary artists from Aotearoa New Zealand focussed on the1960’s to the present along with a few from the early part of the twentieth century. The works are all from Te Papa’s collections and explores several themes through a feminist lens. The 150 works by 50 artists, are accompanied by a catalogue by curator, Lissa Mitchell.

The book includes major photographer such as Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington, Ans Westra and Lisa Reihana. The accompanying essay and biographies by Mitchell of the photographers provide a valuable research resource.

Many of the photographs by our well-established photographers provide the core of the book along with several newer photographers who demonstrate new ways of looking. However, there are examples of the well-known photographers who show a freshness and inventiveness as in the case of Ans Westra whose “Highbury Road” shows aspects of her distinctive vision.

32 Highbury Road, Ans Westra, 2001. Pigment print, 1112 x 1119 mm. Purchased 2013. Te Papa).

The book can be seen as a companion work to “New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa” which was published by Te Papa Press last year and builds on Mitchells 2003 work “Through Shaded Glass: Women and photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860–1960”.

Mitchell writes “Contributions by women to photography in Aotearoa have been consistently concerned with identity, whānau/family, place, and connections across time – themes that are intertwined with the ways women have been able, and unable, to conduct their lives and make photography. Although women have contributed to all aspects of photographic culture, this selection of works is focused on the use of photography – as archival, documentary and creative expression – to record and express experiences and challenge systems of governance and the perspectives of audiences. Central too is the question of what legacies first- and second-wave feminisms have left within photography being made now, as well as the impact of a ‘historical turn’ in contemporary photographic practice to using obsolete analogue photographic processes. Gathered, all these approaches to making are realised as photography that operates across time and space and acknowledges the spirit of sharing and cooperation that enabled its creation – whether with other people, the land, or artists from the past. “

Among the photographers included are Ruth Watson who has worked across sculpture, photography, installation, video and painting, and has long engaged with cartography and the way maps represent our world, along with issues pertaining to global politics and the environment.

Lingua Geographica, Ruth Watson, 1996.
Ilfachrome print, metal pins and metal plaque, which reads: ‘Lingua Geographica, or Geographic Tongue, is the medical name for the cracked and fissured surface of a tongue[.] It is a condition of no clinical significance’, 1977 x 1981 x 87 mm.
Purchased 2009. Te Papa

Mitchell has also included works by Martini Friedlander whose simply composed works, often more like snapshots managed to capture the essence of landscapes, individuals and events in a way which makes them both timeless and very much of their time.

Larks in a paradise – New Zealand portraits, Marti Friedlander with text by James McNeish, Collins Publishers, 1974. Photobook page spread, 292 x 223 x 24 mm.
Te Papa

There are very few early photographs apart from those of Makereti Papakura and Daisy Tinney but the works of Stella Brennan have used 120-year-old glass-plate photographic negatives made by Brennan’s great-great aunt Louise Laurent, a student at Elam School of Art in the late 1890s.

Threads VI, from the series ‘Thread Between Darkness and Light’, Stella Brennan, 2023–24.  Pigment prints, 656 x 849 mm, 849 x 658 mm.  Purchased 2024. Te Papa

The mixture of well-known and rarely seen, the descriptive and the enigmatic, the personal and the public make this collection intriguing and valuable in exploring the various ways in which photographers explore their environments as well as themselves.

One criticism relates to the design of the book. Several photographs are given a two-page spread which means that these images are compromised by the use of the limp binding technique which distorts the images.

The exhibition “Slow Burn” opens at Te Papa from February 28

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Young writers, artists and curators get to this years Venice Biennale

Chiesa della Pietà Venezia

Learning from Venice: A Workshop for Early-Career Artists, Curators and Writers, 25-29 May 2026, Venice Italy

John Daly-Peoples

The Office for Contemporary Art Aotearoa (OCAA) has announced a new initiative “Learning from Venice”, a new professional development opportunity for seven early-career Aotearoa New Zealand artists, curators and writers to take part in an intensive five-day research workshop at the Venice Biennale, between 25 and 29 May 2026.

Timed to coincide with the 61st Biennale of Venice, “Learning from Venice” will take  advantage of the of multiple exhibitions mounted across Venice, including the  NZ exhibition, Taharaki Skyside by Fiona Pardington mounted at Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà (La Pietà) the site of Bill Culbert’s Front Door Out Back exhibition in 2013

This immersion in contemporary art will be led by curator, writer, editor and educator, Christina Barton, and Curator Contemporary Art at Te Papa, Hanahiva Rose.

The workshop will consist of readings, conversations, visits, and talks, and there will be opportunities to meet artists, curators and individuals involved in the Biennale’s realisation.

Participants will collaborate to produce a publication reflecting on their findings, which will be published and distributed after the workshop concludes.

This initiative will enable a cohort of committed individuals to gain a sharper understanding of how the art world works in the context of one of its highest[1]profile occasions. Participants will gain a stronger grasp of the key issues at stake in current practice, testing their reactions and impressions with peers, and learning together to catalyse future thinking about Aotearoa’s place in and contribution to the global art world.

Applications will be accepted from early-career artists, curators and writers based in or from Aotearoa New Zealand who can demonstrate their commitment to pursuing a career in the visual arts. Applications will be assessed by a panel including the co-leaders, a representative from Creative New Zealand, and artist Judy Millar.

Selected participants will be fully funded to attend (including flights, accommodation and a per diem).

Partners

The Learning from Venice workshop has been made possible through the generous support of multiple partners, including Creative New Zealand, Te Papa and the Te Papa Foundation, Elam Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, Naveya & Sloane, Barbara Blake and the Gow Family Foundation. The Chartwell Trust have generously supported the Aotearoa-based elements of the project.

Apply at ocaa.nz

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Royal NZ Ballet’s contemporary Macbeth

John Daly-Peoples

Branden Reiners (Macbeth), Ana Gallardo Lobaina (Lady Macbeth) Image: Ross Brown

The Royal New Zealand Ballet 

Macbeth

Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch

March 2026

John Daly-Peoples

The Royal New Zealand Ballet open its 2026 season with a contemporary reimagining of Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most brutal tragedy. Created by internationally acclaimed choreographer Alice Topp (Aurum, Logos, High Tide), the ballet unfolds in a ruthless modern world shaped by political ambition, media manipulation and the fatal seduction of power. 

The production will feature Ana Gallardo Lobaina as Lady Macbeth and Branden Reiners as Macbeth.

 “Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies, exploring themes as current today as they were when first written,” says Alice Topp. “An epic story fuelled by political ambition, passion, desire for power and the burden of guilt, its potency endures. Our Macbeth is set in a hierarchy-hungry, high-society city, where political storms, media frenzy and personal ambition collide.” 

While ballet companies across the world regularly perform “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummers Night Dream” based on Shakespeare’s plays very few of his other works are performed.  “A Winter’s Tale”, “Hamlet”, “Othello” and “The Tempest” are occasionally performed.

Just in the last couple of years there have been other productions of Macbeth with the National Ballet of Japan performing “The Tragedy of Macbeth” by British choreographer and director Will Tuckett in 2023 and last year the Dutch National Ballet presented a “Lady Macbeth” choreographed by Helen Pickett.

This new co-production with West Australian Ballet will see Macbeth premiere as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington and the Auckland Arts Festival, before touring to Christchurch and Dunedin. Presented in association with Avis, this ambitious new work places Shakespeare’s iconic story of ambition, power and moral collapse into a volatile modern world shaped by political manoeuvring and relentless media scrutiny. 

At the centre of the ballet is the rise and fall of Macbeth and his formidable wife –  a dazzling power couple whose ascent to influence is as intoxicating as it is catastrophic. Propelled by ambition and fanned by public adulation, the Macbeths scale extraordinary heights, only to find themselves consumed by guilt, paranoia and violence. Through the visceral language of contemporary ballet, their psychological unravelling is laid bare in an explosive portrait of power gained and power lost. 

For Topp, the translation of Shakespeare’s dense, language-driven tragedy into movement is not an act of reduction, but of revelation. “Shakespeare’s text might be dense, but it also has movement written into the language,” she says. “The story is a psychological drama, full of behaviours, emotions and atmosphere. All the movement is right there in his words, and my role is to find where those emotions land in the body and let them speak physically.” 

 Award-winning designer Jon Buswell, a long-time RNZB collaborator, will create both set and lighting, shaping a darkly glamorous world that reflects the ballet’s volatile political landscape. Costumes are by Sydney-based designer Aleisa Jelbart, renowned for her bold contemporary designs across ballet, opera and theatre, bringing a sharp modern aesthetic that underscores the work’s themes of power, status and image. 

The production will also feature a newly commissioned contemporary score by composer Christopher Gordon, performed with a live string ensemble from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Layering full orchestral textures with driving, heavy-metal influences, the music provides an unrelenting pulse that mirrors the characters’ accelerating descent. 

Ana Gallardo Lobaina (Lady Macbeth) Image: Ross Brown

Ana Gallardo Lobaina has danced numerous roles for the RNZB including Cinderella and Stepmother in Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella. and she featured roles in Alice Topp’s Aurum and Logos. 

Branden Reiners joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2023 and his roles to date include Siegfried and Rothbart in Swan Lake, Tybalt and Lord Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, Serenade, the ‘Clay’ pas de deux in Alice Topp’s Logos.

 Artistic Director Ty King-Wall says the new production showcases the RNZB at its most daring and expansive. “Macbeth is the Royal New Zealand Ballet as you’ve never seen us before,” says King-Wall. “Alice is bringing a world of bloodshed, betrayal and intrigue to our stages, in a cutting-edge production which draws upon the versatility of our dancers, the skill of our technical team, and demonstrates our incredible artistic range as a company.”  

Macbeth stands as one of the most ambitious new works in the company’s recent history. A bold and bloody retelling of Shakespeare’s tragedy, it promises audiences  
a searing, high-octane theatrical experience – one that speaks urgently to the contemporary world while honouring the enduring power of the original story. 

2026 TOUR DATES 
Wellington, St James Theatre, 25-28 February 

Auckland, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, 4-7 March  

Dunedin, The Regent, 13-14 March 

Christchurch, Isaac Theatre Royal, 18-21 March 

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Auckland Arts Festival Previews – Julia Bullock, Bluebeards Castle and Sincere Apologies

John Daly-Peoples

Julia Bullock

Julia Bullock, Bluebeards Castle, Sincere Apologies

The New York Classic review last year featured a review of Julia Bullock by Rick Perdian

“It would have once been almost impossible to imagine a vocal recital by a major artist with songs by Alban Berg, Bob Dylan, and Rodgers & Hammerstein on the program. These are different times, however, and what once would have been dubious box-office is now perfectly attuned to the times. 

Bullock opened the recital with songs by Samuel Barber, whose embrace of Romanticism put him at odds with the more progressive elements of the musical establishment in mid-twentieth-century America. The three songs which she sang—“My Lizard (Wish for a Young Love),” “Nuvoletta,” and “The Daisies”—outlined the wistful nostalgia, zaniness, and embrace of the bizarre that would course through the recital. 

As with the Barber songs, Bullock performed songs by Kurt Weill which spanned the composer’s career from his collaboration with Bertolt Brecht in Germany to his Broadway hit, Lady in the Dark. 

The outlier was the first, “Complainte de la Seine,” which Weill composed in Paris after fleeing Nazi Germany. This setting, like earlier songs dating from Weill’s collaboration with Brecht, “Ballade vom ertrunkenden Mädchen” and “Song of the Hard Nut,” show the composer at his most hard-edged and bleak. With crystalline tone, perfect pitch, and a delivery void of sentiment, Bullock sang of cadavers resting at the bottom of the Seine, the Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg’s decaying corpse in a Berlin canal, and the calculated transactions that fuel capitalism. With “The “Princess of Pure Delight,” Bullock switched gears, projecting a cool sophistication that evoked the era.

Bullock’s most sublime singing came with Berg’s Altenberg Lieder. Viennese audience’s greeted the songs with such derision in 1913 that Berg never permitted them to be performed during his lifetime. The five songs are settings of enigmatic verses by the poet Peter Altenberg which he sent to friends on postcards. 

A substantial portion of the second half of the recital was devoted to songs by Richard Rodger and Oscar Hammerstein. Bullock told the audience that their music had been a part of her life from her earliest years growing up in St. Louis. “Dites-Mois” from South Pacific was the first song that she ever sang in public at the age of ten before an audience of thousands. 

The audience was enthralled as Bullock sang some of the greatest hits from The Sound of Music and South Pacific. For the most part, these were straightforward renditions of beloved songs, but Bullock and Brown could be provocative, such as in “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific. Bullock delivered the song’s message with a matter-of-fact directness which was intensified by Brown’s punctuation from the piano. 

There were also songs linked to Odetta Holmes,who was known as the voice of the American civil rights movement in the Sixties. Bullock sang Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” with a penetrating, unflinching directness. Odetta’s arrangement of “Going Home” and Elizabeth’s Cotten’s “Freight Train” followed. 

Bullock ended the recital with Converse’s poignant ballad “How Sad, How Lovely,” a meditation on the loveliness and sadness of life.”

Bluebeards Castle

This version of Bluebeards Castel was previously performed in Wellington and Christchurch in 2023. Elizabeth Kerr reviewed the work in Five Lines.

“The dramatic trajectory of this contemporary production of Bluebeard’s Castle is vivid and deeply moving from its opening bars till the passionate conclusion. ..For me, its greatest wonder is the faithful use of the original text and music to tell a tragic story of today, a superb creative reimagining of Bartók ‘s only opera.

Bartók wrote Bluebeard’s Castle in 1911. He was 30 years old. The Gothic work, with a libretto by the composer’s friend, poet Béla Balázs, was based on the French folk tale published in the 17th century by Charles Perrault.

The opera has a singing cast of two with a full orchestra. The role of Bluebeard is sung in this New Zealand performance by US baritone Lester Lynch, and his wife Judith by UK soprano Susan Bullock. As the semi-staged  production opens, the strings of the NZSO set a rather creepy mood. The couple arrive onstage, Judith appearing confused and troubled. “If you left me, I’d be lost and all alone here,” she sings.

In the original, Judith was Bluebeard’s very young wife, brought to his cold, dark castle and confronted by seven locked doors, which open in turn throughout the opera, revealing their disturbing contents. The locked doors are replaced by a suitcase, and from it are drawn contents representing memories of Judith’s life and their relationship.

Bluebeard’s Castle is often described as a Symbolist opera and symbolism remains strong in this production. ..This is the writing of a young Bartók, strongly influenced by Romantic composers and Debussy, and his score, including the challenging and chromatic vocal lines, is beautiful, colourful and lush. It is also highly dramatic and alongside the theatrical symbolism are meaningful musical motives, most noticeable the “blood” motive of a minor second, a semitone, appearing whenever Judith, remembering past losses and fears, refers to blood.

A final “door” brings the impassioned denouement. “When this door is opened, Judith, you will find my wife there waiting”, sings Bluebeard, handing her a mirror from the suitcase. The poetry in the libretto really blooms here, as Bluebeard sings of his former wives, the young lover, wife of the dawn, the young wife of his “noontime”, the mother, wife of his evening.

The younger wives return, also holding mirrors, and as Bluebeard sings of each, Judith offers a repetitive and sad little refrain from her chair. “Ah, compared to her, I am nothing.” But she is, he tells her, his wife of the night. Musically, Bartók brings the opera to its big romantic climax.  “Eternal beauty!” sings Bluebeard. “Now, all turns to darkness.”

The mood in music and staging fades quietly. Tenderly, Bluebeard brings Judith a cup of tea. The lights also fade to blackness.”

Sincere Apologies

“Sincere Apologies” is an Australian production with relevance to New Zealand with a recent review of the production in “My Melbourne Arts” praising the low key, audience based play.

“Sincere Apologies” begins unassumingly: an envelope is handed to an audience member and it is passed from hand to hand. No words are exchanged, no introduction is made, no actors are present. It’s just a low-key game of “pass the parcel” that opens the door to a chorus of voices and a world of regret.

Fifty real apologies are sealed inside fifty envelopes that are distributed to the audience. These span from 1990 all the way into the future, each one factual and collected from documented expressions of remorse by public figures, private correspondence, and personal moments by the shows three creators, Dan Koop, Jamie Lewis and David Williams. One by one, in numerical order, audience members step up to a microphone and read them aloud.

Some are weighty and political – a Prime Minister’s apology to the Stolen Generation or BP’s statement following an oil spill. Others tap into pop culture’s hall of infamy – like Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Then, there are the apologies from the creators themselves, adding a deeper intimate layer to the mix.
There are no actors in Sincere Apologies. No one introduces the show or welcomes the audience. Even at the end, when we clap, it’s not for performers on stage, but for each other, and the three tech staff quietly stationed in the corner. The audience is the cast, and in that shared vulnerability something almost communal forms. Strangers stumble over words, laugh nervously, or surprisingly choke up. You start to listen differently, not as a spectator, but as part of a temporary community bound by confession.

As the reading unfolds, you find yourself unexpectedly drawn in, paying attention not only to the words themselves, but to the way they are spoken. Stripped of power, fame, and PR polish, these words take on new meanings. When random people speak them, they can come across as absurd, hollow, or even heartbreaking and genuine. The performance asks: what happens when we remove status from an apology? Can tone, delivery, and intent make any acknowledgment register as authentic – or insincere?

A carefully crafted score heightens the work, as subtle sound effects and rhythmic pulses heighten particular instances, building a hypnotic rhythm that pulls the audience into this collective act of reckoning.

By the end, this experience is strangely moving. There’s humour and absurdity, yes, but there is a weight to hearing the people in the room attempt to make things right. It’s exhausting and cathartic, and a reminder that “sorry” is both universal and endlessly complicated.”

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Auckland Arts Festival Previews – Visitors, Sultans Kitchen and Duck Pond

John Daly-Peoples

Visitors

Visitors

A Theatre Times review by Bronwyn Carlson.

“It is 1788, and six senior lawmen (with one young man sent as a representative) witness the arrival of the First Fleet. The play features a talented cast: John Blair, Damion Hunter, Colin Kinchela, Nathan Leslie, Leroy Parsons, Glenn Shea, Kerri Simpson. As we approach the 250th anniversary of Cook’s arrival, this play is timely and fresh given the paucity of publicly available sources that document first encounters from an Indigenous perspective. Visitors had come and gone for many years and the play includes reference to Cook’s visit 18 Summers prior. But previous visitors always left.

Humour provides relief to this intensely imagined moment in history. The Visitors is written by Jane Harrison. Dir. Frederick Copperwaite. Carriageworks Theatre, 2020. Photo: Jamie James.

The script involves much discussion about whether to engage in war or allow the visitors to come ashore. After lengthy debates, the men notice that the visitors are landing. They make the fatal decision to welcome them. The Visitors’ dialogue is witty and satirical. The men at its center describe the visitors in derogatory ways that mirror the way colonizers described us – “wretched people” with nothing to offer.

The Design

The set is beautifully designed with large trees framing the meeting place. Fog drifts in, allowing the audience to imagine a time long ago by the ocean. The sound of the sea and birds amplifies the experience.

The men are dressed in suits symbolizing their status in contemporary terms. They are given clan names that relate to Countries such as Eel clan or Bay people. This avoids any contest around traditional boundaries and clan names.

Personalities, But Where Are The Women?

Aboriginal protocols are clear – the men pay respect to the Country as they each arrive. Formal proceedings begin with being welcomed onto the Country, just like what the audience experienced before the performance.

Formalities aside, there is also a lot of humour in this play. Fun is made of one of the men who has complained he can’t connect with his new wife. Grandfather Elder examines him and concludes that his new wife probably just doesn’t like him. Personalities are clear – something that is often missed in the colonial writing of Indigenous peoples. We are human, we laugh, we disagree and we engage in combat, revenge, grudges, and all manner of human frailty.

The experience could have only been improved by the inclusion of Aboriginal women in the cast. The women, we are told, are away on Women’s business  and although they are often referred to, are missing from the decision making process. In one scene one of the men refers to women as “spoils” of battle and in another, after hearing the younger man simulate the mooing of a cow, a comment is made that it sounds like his wife. Perhaps this is just banter between men, however, historically a range of tropes have been used to typecast Aboriginal women into roles imagined by the colonizers.

The women’s absence suggests there was — or is — a lack of senior Aboriginal women knowledge holders. The truth is far from this assumption. There is ample evidence Aboriginal women were involved in early interactions, amicable and otherwise, with early settlers. For example, it is believed local fisherwoman Barrangaroo — noted for her presence and authority — was present at the first meeting between settlers and her Cammeraygal people at Manly in 1788, and also participated in warfare with settlers at North Harbour in November 1788. She is remembered in early colonial documents as having a commanding presence, inciting respect and fear in those around her. Likewise across the country, there are stories of Aboriginal women emerging including their heroic efforts to defend Country.

A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen

A review of A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) by Nance Haxton in Brisbane’s Indaily

“There aren’t many shows where you emerge and say the play was as good as the food, but A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) certainly passed the taste test.

Telling the multi-layered story of his family’s past while cooking his grandmother Mehmeh’s chicken curry, Joshua Hinton recalls his heritage, sprinkled with a message so needed right now – that we are all not as far apart culturally as we think. And that food unites us all.

The Australian singer-songwriter unpicks his origins going back generations by skilfully weaving into his conversation audio interviews with his grandmother while the aromas of turmeric, garam masala, cinnamon, chilli, tomato and chicken float over the audience like a spell.

The spice bottles from his onstage kitchen become integral parts of the story, with photos of his family emerging from the spice rack to become characters in his grandmother’s recollections. Kitchen utensils magically becoming war planes in war stories.

Joshua’s brother Dominic is also on stage throughout, on guitar and supporting his brother by controlling multi-media shots from a range of angles around the kitchen to highlight crucial elements in the evolution of the curry. This all reveals aspects of Joshua’s identity, living between cultures.

For Brisbane lovers and appreciators of Sultans Kitchen, a staple of the Paddington foodie scene for more than 40 years, this is somewhat compulsory viewing to see the incredible challenges that the founders of this Brisbane institution overcame to build this restaurant.

Hinton is a skilled storyteller as well as musician, wrapping up his culinary journey around the world with an original song sung with his brother, satisfying all the senses before the audience steps outside to partake of the chicken curry that formed the backbone of the tale. It was a beguilingly simple device executed perfectly, and a night to remember.”

Duck Pond

A review of Duck Pond in The Guardian by Lindsey Winship
“Australian company Circa are masters of modern circus, often eschewing obvious exhibitionism, and instead weaving acrobatic skills with a dance and theatre sensibility to make mood pieces. Previous works have considered the plight of refugees (The Return), tragic tales of Orpheus and Eurydice or Dido and Aeneas, and have taken on music from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Beethoven’s Ninth – all serious business.

Duck Pond is, on the surface, a less serious proposition. The name is a parody of Swan Lake and it borrows from the famous ballet – shards of Tchaikovsky’s score feed into Jethro Woodward’s soundtrack – and also from another fairytale, the Ugly Duckling. So we get a love triangle of sorts between a prince, an ugly duck and a vivacious black swan. The conceit might seem to promise a more conventional narrative, but it delivers something a little different. The mood is understated, classy, colours of black and gold, a clan of performers in shimmering velvet catsuits. The music is a constant underscore rather than a game of set-ups and climaxes.

There is a lot of beautiful skill on show. Acrobats climb up human towers; flyers somersault between bases. Their formations of three are especially inventive: ornate arrangements of bodies in fine-tuned equilibrium, toes anchored on hips, lower backs, shoulders, anywhere they can get a foothold. There are some lovely moments of flow between couples who lift and fling, curl and unfurl, balance and counterbalance. Bodies tie themselves in knots on the trapeze; others soar on the silks. The ugly duck is revealed to be a swooping swan; the black swan has a dominatrix moment walking over a man’s bare back in red stilettos. But there are lulls too, such as a pillow fight that turns into an anticlimax.

Story-wise, director Yaron Lifschitz puts a couple of nice twists on the Swan Lake narrative but it lacks a big emotional payoff. Low-key lyricism, rather than transactional tricks for applause is Circa’s way and Duck Pond is a lovely show, with warmth, skill and some wow moments, but you can’t help feel it could do with a dash more pizzazz.”

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Niue’s Hikulagi Sculpture Park

John Daly-Peoples

Niue’s Hikulagi Sculpture Park: A Global Microcosm

Sited in the middle of the natural rainforest of the Pacific Island of Niue is a physically small but conceptually monumental installation / treatise on global environment concerns, the Hikulagi Sculpture Park.

The Hikulagi Park was established in 1996 by members of the then Tahiono Arts Collective, a small group of artists including Mark Cross. Many had returned to their Pacific home, countering the trend of urban drift that has devastated many rural and island populations in the Pacific.

Several acres of land south of the eastern village of Liku were at the artists’ disposal and, while being ideal for the purpose of the artists’ environmental concerns, it was also ironically surrounded by the pristine rainforest which once covered the now degraded land.

The park’s concept embraces the sentiment that an island is analogous to Planet Earth in microcosm, and so is intended to encourage discussion on issues such as, pollution, climate change and human co-existence. It is a place where the intrinsic and unique qualities of Niuean Culture and environment can be shared with the world while attracting attention to Niue through the medium of contemporary sculpture, a medium seen nowhere else in the Pacific Islands.

Its intention is to do this through audience participation and the predominant utilisation of the found object; that is to say, the artists and community make sculpture from the inorganic waste created by contemporary consumer society.

With this in mind, the centrepiece of the park is the monumental sculpture called ‘Protean Habitat’ which epitomises the ideals behind the Hikulagi Sculpture Space. On-going and interactive, it is an art project that does not have any perception of a finite conclusion. Based on a wooden substructure, it is an assemblage sculpture fundamentally constructivist in its utilisation of the found object that can easily be attached with the most basic of tools, enabling passers-by to add their own input.

In its state of ever-changing growth the sculpture reflects the state of the world and the refuse that humanity is accumulating in its juggernaut consumerist path to who-knows-where. This vagueness of direction and final outcome of humanity are then reflected in the unexpected directions the sculpture will take during its growth and the fact that it will grow ad infinitum.

The first sculpture to be erected at the park in 1996 was by Niuean returnee Mikoyan Vekula, who grew up in Wellington. His ‘Odesyk’ is a six-metre semicircle of six totem poles of native Kafika hardwood decorated intricately with cut and inverted beer cans. The circle is completed by limestone rocks known as Makatea throughout Polynesia. Resisting the Polynesian artist trend of introspection in his imagery, Vekula draws from a number of indigenous cultures including Australian, American and Celtic .The totems in this esoterically titled sculpture depict a family, with the guardians on each end of the semicircle and the four children in the middle. At the centre of the circle is a bench intended for the viewer’s contemplation and meditation.

Several more ephemeral artworks have been created by artists who just happen to be passing through Niue. A good example is ‘Web’, a sculpture created by environmental artist Meri Heitala from Helsinki which has been made by stringing telephone wire, spider-web-like, between two coconut trees while attaching drink can tear tabs, which suggests captured insects. In this way, such ephemeral sculptures are encouraged to enlist the input from visiting artists who may not have the time to create something more permanent.

A recent project that is more of an enclosure than a sculpture is ‘Sale’s Fale’, an ongoing project in memory of the Niue High School art teacher and sculpture park co-founder Charles Jessop who passed away in 2012. The sculpture is in the form of a monumental montage constructed by the Niue community through the biennial competition ‘The Charles Jessop Memorial Sculpture Prize’

The Hikulagi Sculpture space to date is being created through the voluntary labour of various individuals and businesses on Niue. Initial funding at its inception was provided by the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust as well as the then Aus-Aid Cultural Fund. The space has been supported by Reef Shipping, The New Zealand High Commission to Niue and Niue Tourism has helped with some construction and on-going maintenance.


Protean Habitat is an ongoing monumental assemblage in an ever-changing state of growth and decay, not unlike all life on the planet Earth. It has an interactive element whereby the public are invited to add their own sub-sculptures to the substructure leaving their small indelible mark on the growth of the main construction.

Mark Cross who has had over 40 years of association with the Island of Niue says “I have been alert to the layers upon layers of humanity that has come and gone leaving small elements of their lives making a small community into a living protean organism. In such an isolated community this awareness becomes more acute and then you realize what you are experiencing is a microcosm of the whole world. So, in its state of ever-changing growth, the sculpture reflects the state of the world and the refuse that humanity is accumulating in its juggernaut consumerist path to who knows where. This vagueness of direction and the final outcome of humanity is then reflected in the unpredictable directions the sculpture will take during its growth and the fact that it may or may not grow ad infinitum.”

The concept behind the Hikulagi Sculpture Park has links to the Watts Towers in Los Angles and Palais Ideal in Hauterives, France.

The Watts Towers are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural, structures, built by Simon Rodia over a period of 33 years from 1921 to 1954. The Palais Ideal is a series of constructions built by postman. Ferdinand Cheval over 33 years 1879–1912 in Hauterives, France.

A new project will involve the internationally recognised sculptor Chris Booth who has produced more than twenty large scale sculptures around the world. The sculptor travelled to Niue in 2023 when he ascertained the potential sculptural medium of rocks and stones as well as meeting with potential collaborators such as the leading weavers in the village of Liku,

As weaving is the most dynamic artform existing in Niue today Chris has identified with it and master weavers Enele Kaiuha and Ahi Makaea-Cross have agreed to collaborate and transfuse ideas that may influence the design of the sculpture. This collaboration will in turn enable the project managers to interest the wider community in becoming involved both in a practical way (the collection of rocks and stones) and as an audience in the construction of the sculpture and the finished work. We also anticipate that the schools both primary and secondary to be involved from the outset to the completion, the project being a unique opportunity for the children to be exposed to contemporary art practice if not being more closely involved in its construction.

In 2024 he again travelled to Niue in September to try to decide on a more definite concept for the sculpture. Prior to his arrival the Broadcasting Corporation of Niue (BCN) offered the project a cyclone damaged, 8 metre diameter, aluminium satellite dish which could be inverted to form a dome structure. This would support around 1700 150mm rocks from the quarry while another 500 or so weathered beach rocks would provide a contrast to the more jagged quarry stone which would be employed to create the patterns used in the “tia” coil weaving technique (placemats, bowls etc). The use of the satellite dish also fits within the strong Hikulagi ethos of the re and upcycling of obsolete consumer and industrial materials as an environmental statement.

https://www.markcross.nu/

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Eddie Clemens’ new sculpture for Wellington

John Daly-Peoples

Eddie Clemens, Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash Image Ted Whitaker

Eddie Clemens

Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash

Shed 21 Wellington

John Daly-Peoples

Another outstanding public work of art for Wellington City has been opened this week. “Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash” created by Eddie Clemes is an ambitious new work of art for Wellington that will transform a pedestrian thoroughfare linking the railway station with Wellington’s waterfront and CBD.

The Wellington Sculpture Trust recognised that the rather dark and cheerless Shed 21 Colonnade on Waterloo Quay (opposite the railway station) presented a perfect opportunity for a light work that would be visible both day and night.

Auckland-based artist, Eddie Clemens’, proposal for the space, fitted the brief perfectly with a work that is both recognisable, relatable and whimsical. A work that would provide an engaging and uplifting space for pedestrians through an architecturally significant heritage building space.

The work will be ‘switched on’ for the first time this week by Gisella Carr, Head of Creative Capital at Wellington Council. The Council is an important partner of the Trust’s and assumes ownership and ongoing maintenance of the works once gifted.

Jane Black, chair of the Wellington Sculpture Trust, said: “Eddie’s work fulfilled the Trust’s brief perfectly with his proposed work: “Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash”, a kinetic light sculpture that takes the form of an automatic tunnel car wash with one dramatic twist: the bristles of the spinning car-wash brushes are fibre-optic cables, and will literally wash the colonnade and pedestrians in light and colour, softening the architecture and turning the space into a visually striking haven of moving light.”

The ‘carwash’ represents a significant development in a strand of Eddie’s practice that  began in 2009 with his original “Fibre-Optic Broom” which was exhibited in his Frances Hodgkins fellowship exhibition, “Delusional Architecture”.

His fibre-optic works transform everyday cleaning objects into items that transmit not only light but also programmed information – more a tool of science fiction than a household item.

Eddie Clemens says: “My recent work has been concerned with ideas of time and  subjectivity, building on my interest in cinema and the narrative potential of physical objects.

In “Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash” (2025), a series of fibre-optic rollers suspended from the ceiling display moving patterns of light and colour, illuminating the urban environment while also alluding to the experience of a commercial car wash, where the passage of the brush heads over the windows can create the illusion that the car itself is moving. Walking through the Colonnade, pedestrians are themselves washed by the light, briefly separated and ensnared in a moment of informational and luminous uncertainty,” Eddie said.

He has been refining the work over the past five years, interrupted by Covid and the ensuing distribution problems, but also refining the work with ever-changing cutting-edge technology to make it more durable and robust.

Eddie Clemens, Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash (detail) Image Ted Whitaker

Each of the seven ‘roller brush’ units of the Fibre-Optic Colonnade Car Wash contains 1000 addressable LEDS that are programmed to display a range of colourful animations, ensuring the work continues to mesmerise those passing through each day.

It is planned the work will operate in the mornings and evenings during peak pedestrian times: 7am-9am, 3.30pm-6.30pm, 8.00pm – 11.00pm, and for 10 minutes on the hour in between until 11pm.

Jane Black says: “The Trust is very grateful to the residents of Shed 21 who gave their permission for the work to be installed on the ceiling of the colonnade, and to the many donors who have generously contributed to funding the over $250,000 artwork.”

It has been a huge month for the Wellington Sculpture Trust, having just installed Seung Yul Oh’s work “KIMI/You are here” in Waitangi Park, and a big month for Wellington in terms of the addition of two exceptional works that will be gifted to the city. Eddie’s work is the 31st permanent public artwork to be commissioned by the Trust.

Jane Black says the two new artworks are major additions to Wellington’s collection of world class public sculpture. They bookend the waterfront and now form part of the Trust’s waterfront sculpture walk which includes Glen Hayward’s work, “The Grove”, a celebration of Wellington’s maritime history; and “Nga Kina”, a work by Michel Tuffery, marking the Kumutoto Pa and stream; and the temporary works placed on the 4 plinths outside Te Papa for the Collin Post Four Plinths Project.

“Eddie Clemens is a total maverick. His sci-fi tinged work is meta in its range of references and operations—sometimes head-scratching, always stimulating. This kinetic light sculpture comes from a line of glowing fibre-optic brooms and handscrubbers, of materialised fences and bridges that are put to work in and on specific spaces. His proposal to turn an entire colonnade into an fibre-optic, automatic tunnel car wash that is to be walked (not driven) through is out of the box brilliant thinking. It perfectly marries concept, a decade’s practice, and technology—all turned towards the specific dynamics of a very challenging site.”

Glen Hayward, “The Grove”
Seung Yul Oh’s work, KIMI/You are here Image, Robert Kitchin
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Reviews, News and Commentary

Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide

John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds

Massey University Press

RRP $37.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

John Walsh and photographer Patrick Reynolds have just launched “Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide” their third book in the series of architectural walking tours following on from their books on Auckland and Christchurch. It is a great addition to books which explore and explain our built environment.

 John Walsh in the introduction notes that he was born in Wellington which was as “compact and confined as a medieval city-state, intensely impressed itself on me, in the most impressionable part of my life. My mother had moved to Wellington where she met my father, and they were married in the church at St Gerard’s Monastery. I remember the Freyberg Pool, where I learned to swim; the summer lights strung on the Norfolk pines along Oriental Parade; and the council yard where my father worked, next to the Herd Street Post and Telegraph Building. My high school was near the old National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum; we’d be sent to mass at St Mary of the Angels and, in blazers and ties, despatched from Wellington Railway Station on rugby expeditions into the hinterlands of the Hutt Valley.”

Public Trust Building

This reviewer also grew up in  Wellington, living in the National Hotel  across from  the corner of Stout St and  Lambton Quay. From our front room we had an impressive architectural vista including The Public Trust Building The Government Departmental Building and The State Insurance Building. Further down the street was the Wellington Railway Station  and the Seamans Mission Building.

On my way to school I passed  Ernst Plischke’s Massey House, The Old Supreme Court, The Old Government Building, The Beehive, Parliament building, the General Assembly Library, Turnbull House and the rather unfortunate Cathedral of St Paul. These were the background to my life at the time and it was only when I moved to suburban Karori that I noticed the difference in my daily environment.

Shed 7, Wellington Harbour Board

The place of architecture in our environment and in our personal and social history is important often more noticeable when we are in foreign cities. A city’s buildings are important in defining the nature of a place. When visiting a place for the first time the visitor will map a city through its buildings. The materials, the orientation, the colours, the decoration and the forms all help create the language of the way the city is perceived.

The buildings of Auckland Wellington and Christchurch have many similarities but the accumulation of the various periods of construction and styles in each of those places has created very individual environments.

“Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide” features more than 120 significant buildings describing their purpose and history as well as  providing a background on  the architects who designed them. The buildings are grouped into five self-guided walking routes, each with a map together with itineraries which collectively create a portrait of the  city.

St John’s

The building are  a mix of colonial, nineteenth century Gothic, mid-century modernism and buildings of the last fifty years illustrating the changing nature of the architecture along with the changing nature of New Zealand and the city. The buildings are banks, businesses, government departments, churches, apartment buildings libraries, hotels, apartments, and a few  private houses.

One of the tours features several of the government institutions surrounding Parliament including the Old Government Building (now the Victoria University Law School) and one on the largest wooden buildings in the world, all those other buildings I passed on the way to school along with the more recent  brutalist National Library and the modernist Freyberg Building.

Several architects feature with a number of buildings such as Gummer & Ford, Thomas Turnbull and Ian Athfield who is represented by the Wellington Library (soon to be reopened) and his Oriental Parade flats as well as a few, often controversial,  additions he made to existing buildings

DeLoitte, 20 Customhouse Quay

While all the buildings are significant there are a number  scattered through the  walk which have importance beyond their architectural qualities. There are the Dixon Street Flats which were the first multi-story modernist block of flats created under the First Labour Government which show the influence of overseas trends introduced to New Zealand by Plischke.

There is also the remarkable Futuna Chapel designed by John Scott the Māori architect who managed to combine aspects of Māori and mainstream architecture. Walsh notes that Futuna is  one of the few buildings one could refer to as “iconic”.

Asked which building he regarded as the most interesting new building in Wellington he has stated that it is Heke Rua the new building for New Zealand’s Archive beside the National library, both for its architecture as well its signaling a commitment to preserving the nations documentary heritage.

Walsh writes in an informative style, providing wide ranging information to provide a context for the buildings so that while the book is an ideal complement to a walking tour of the city it is also provides a potted history of the social, political and aesthetics development over 150 years in the city as seen through the buildings.

The photography of Patrick Reynolds enhances the text with many of them showing an appreciation of the design elements of the buildings, 

Anscombe Flats
Categories
Reviews, News and Commentary

Wellington Architecture: a Walking Guide

Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide

John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds

Massey University Press

RRP $37.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

John Walsh and photographer Patrick Reynolds have just launched “Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide”  a revised edition of the book first published in 2022. This is their third book in the series of architectural walking tours following on from their books on Auckland and Christchurch. It is a great addition to books which explore and explain our built environment.

 John Walsh in the introduction notes that he was born in Wellington which was as “compact and confined as a medieval city-state, intensely impressed itself on me, in the most impressionable part of my life. I remember the Freyberg Pool, where I learned to swim; the summer lights strung on the Norfolk pines along Oriental Parade; and the council yard where my father worked, next to the Herd Street Post and Telegraph Building. My high school was near the old National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum; we’d be sent to mass at St Mary of the Angels and, in blazers and ties, despatched from Wellington Railway Station on rugby expeditions into the hinterlands of the Hutt Valley.”

A building with a dome on the top AI-generated content may be incorrect.Public Trust Building

This reviewer also grew up in Wellington, living in the National Hotel across from the corner of Stout St and Lambton Quay. From our front room we had an impressive architectural vista including The Public Trust Building, The Government Departmental Building and The State Insurance Building. Further down the street was the Wellington Railway Station.

On my way to school I passed Ernst Plischke’s Massey House, The Old Supreme Court, The Old Government Building, The Beehive, Parliament building, the General Assembly Library, Turnbull House and the rather unfortunate Cathedral of St Paul. These were the background to my life at the time and it was only when I moved to suburban Karori that I noticed the difference in my daily environment.

A building with a dome top AI-generated content may be incorrect.Shed 7, Wellington Harbour Board

The place of architecture in our environment and in our personal and social history is important often more noticeable when we are in foreign cities. A city’s buildings are important in defining the nature of a place. When visiting a place for the first time the visitor will map a city through its buildings. The materials, the orientation, the colours, the decoration and the forms all help create the language of the way the city is perceived.

The buildings of Auckland Wellington and Christchurch have many similarities but the accumulation of the various periods of construction and styles in each of those places has created very individual environments.

“Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide” features more than 126 significant buildings describing their purpose and history as well as providing a background on the architects who designed them. The buildings are grouped into five self-guided walking routes, each with a map together with itineraries which collectively create a portrait of the city.

A church with a tall steeple AI-generated content may be incorrect.St John’s

The building are a mix of colonial, nineteenth century Gothic, mid-century modernism and buildings of the last fifty years illustrating the changing nature of the architecture along with the changing nature of New Zealand and the city. The buildings are banks, businesses, government departments, churches, apartment buildings libraries, hotels, apartments, and a few private houses.

One of the tours features several of the government institutions surrounding Parliament including the Old Government Building (now the Victoria University Law School) and one on the largest wooden buildings in the world, all those other buildings I passed on the way to school along with the more recent  brutalist National Library and the modernist Freyberg Building.

Several architects feature with a number of buildings such as Gummer & Ford, Thomas Turnbull and Ian Athfield who is represented by the Wellington Library (soon to be reopened) and his Oriental Parade flats as well as a few, often controversial,  additions he made to existing buildings.

Asked which building he regarded as the most interesting nee building in Wellington he has stated that it is Heke Rua the new building for New Zealand’s Archive beside the National library, both for its architecture as well its signaling a commitment to preserving the nations documentary heritage.

Categories
Reviews, News and Commentary

Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide

John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds

Massey University Press

RRP $37.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

John Walsh and photographer Patrick Reynolds have just launched “Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide”  a revised edition of the book first published in 2022. This is their third book in the series of architectural walking tours following on from their books on Auckland and Christchurch. It is a great addition to books which explore and explain our built environment.

 John Walsh in the introduction notes that he was born in Wellington which was as “compact and confined as a medieval city-state, intensely impressed itself on me, in the most impressionable part of my life. I remember the Freyberg Pool, where I learned to swim; the summer lights strung on the Norfolk pines along Oriental Parade; and the council yard where my father worked, next to the Herd Street Post and Telegraph Building. My high school was near the old National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum; we’d be sent to mass at St Mary of the Angels and, in blazers and ties, despatched from Wellington Railway Station on rugby expeditions into the hinterlands of the Hutt Valley.”

A building with a dome on the top AI-generated content may be incorrect.Public Trust Building

This reviewer also grew up in Wellington, living in the National Hotel across from the corner of Stout St and Lambton Quay. From our front room we had an impressive architectural vista including The Public Trust Building, The Government Departmental Building and The State Insurance Building. Further down the street was the Wellington Railway Station.

On my way to school I passed Ernst Plischke’s Massey House, The Old Supreme Court, The Old Government Building, The Beehive, Parliament building, the General Assembly Library, Turnbull House and the rather unfortunate Cathedral of St Paul. These were the background to my life at the time and it was only when I moved to suburban Karori that I noticed the difference in my daily environment.

A building with a dome top AI-generated content may be incorrect.Shed 7, Wellington Harbour Board

The place of architecture in our environment and in our personal and social history is important often more noticeable when we are in foreign cities. A city’s buildings are important in defining the nature of a place. When visiting a place for the first time the visitor will map a city through its buildings. The materials, the orientation, the colours, the decoration and the forms all help create the language of the way the city is perceived.

The buildings of Auckland Wellington and Christchurch have many similarities but the accumulation of the various periods of construction and styles in each of those places has created very individual environments.

“Wellington Architecture, A Walking Guide” features more than 126 significant buildings describing their purpose and history as well as providing a background on the architects who designed them. The buildings are grouped into five self-guided walking routes, each with a map together with itineraries which collectively create a portrait of the city.

A church with a tall steeple AI-generated content may be incorrect.St John’s

The building are a mix of colonial, nineteenth century Gothic, mid-century modernism and buildings of the last fifty years illustrating the changing nature of the architecture along with the changing nature of New Zealand and the city. The buildings are banks, businesses, government departments, churches, apartment buildings libraries, hotels, apartments, and a few private houses.

One of the tours features several of the government institutions surrounding Parliament including the Old Government Building (now the Victoria University Law School) and one on the largest wooden buildings in the world, all those other buildings I passed on the way to school along with the more recent  brutalist National Library and the modernist Freyberg Building.

Several architects feature with a number of buildings such as Gummer & Ford, Thomas Turnbull and Ian Athfield who is represented by the Wellington Library (soon to be reopened) and his Oriental Parade flats as well as a few, often controversial,  additions he made to existing buildings.

Asked which building he regarded as the most interesting nee building in Wellington he has stated that it is Heke Rua the new building for New Zealand’s Archive beside the National library, both for its architecture as well its signaling a commitment to preserving the nations documentary heritage..