News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Readymade mule at Basel

Readymade mule at Basel

Et al.’s exhibition ‘altruistic studies’ – a “non-peopled, computer-generated performance” – installed at the Basel art fair in early June, their fourth at the international show, has once again sparked curiosity about the group’s identity. Et. al…

Ideas of transformation

Ideas of transformation

Upper Hutt-born painter Shane Cotton recently held a three-month residence at Sydney’s Artspace where he prepared works for upcoming 2008/09 shows at Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland and Kaliman Gallery in Sydney. Art World’s Laura Murray talked…

Censored views

Censored views

The work of New Zealand photographer and artist Bruce Connew features on the cover of the latest issue of UK literary magazine Granta (#105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009). Censored 2008 is a photographic artwork that…

Up-and-coming Upritchard

Up-and-coming Upritchard

Artist to watch Francis Upritchard features in the 48th issue of Object magazine. “An exciting talent … Upritchard’s art locates value in the personal and the imperfect …  finds a way of accommodating beauty, rendering…

Mad for glamour geeks

Mad for glamour geeks

Auckland artist Peter Stichbury’s acrylic portraits of stereotyped “yearbook” characters feature in the latest Art World magazine, with his 2000 work ‘Juvenile’ taking the cover. “Stichbury is highly regarded for creating stylish, satirical portraits of his own…

Gimblett at the Guggenheim

Gimblett at the Guggenheim

New York/Auckland artist Max Gimblett features in the latest issue of Art World, in an article by collaborator John Yau about the influence of Asia on the artist’s work. Gimblett, who has long had a…

Possibilities in names

Possibilities in names

Porirua-born artist Michael Parekowhai’s latest sculpture will soon be unveiled at Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Art World eports. “The sculpture is a groups of ten boys dressed up as American Indians, each of whom contemplate the viewer with…

Digging a little deeper

Digging a little deeper

The work of Auckland-based digital and multimedia artist Lisa Reihana is deconstructed in the winter 2009 issue of Art & Australia by feature writer Jon Bywater. Titled ‘Mana and Glamour’, the article looks beyond well-catalogued ideas that…

All Things Wild and Innocent

All Things Wild and Innocent

One of our most internationally prominent artists, NYNZer Max Gimblett exhibited at San Francisco’s Haines Gallery in April. The 30 year New York resident’s refined and harmonious canvases are created utilizing a process akin to alchemy….

Crunching genetics

Crunching genetics

Roger Hellens from New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research has identified the genetic code for Golden Delicious apples meaning growers will be able to produce crunchier, juicier and healthier fruits. Hellens said: “We will…

Constitution Conundrum

Constitution Conundrum

Former Labour deputy Prime Minister Dr Michael Cullen is calling for an end to the British monarchy. This month Cullen, who stepped down from Parliament when Labour lost power in 28, will deliver a…

Urban shark attack

Urban shark attack

New Zealand filmmakers Andrew Todd and Johnny Hall are making a horror film inspired by a road trip which took them through the town of Oamaru. They describe the moment: “We passed through…

Mudgway then Melbourne

Mudgway then Melbourne

Cambridge jockey James McDonald, 18, has became the first apprentice to win a Mudgway Stakes with Keep The Peace winning in the group one feature at Hastings. It was the third group one win…

Clement’s Double Life

Clement’s Double Life

“One of the reasons I went into comedy and acting was that I was sick of being shy,” Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement tells the Guardian’s Killian Fox. “I guess I have…

Catwalk curves

Catwalk curves

Designer Caroline Marr’s label The Carpenter’s Daughter returns to New Zealand Fashion week this year showcasing her Winter 21 collection for women with curves. Specialising in “Clothing for Curvy Girls”, producing 1 per cent…

Gore filled retribution

Gore filled retribution

A supernatural horror film made by New Zealand director David Blyth made its European premiere at this year’s Fright Fest in London. “A controversial cult film in the making, Wound, explores the wicked…

Guardian Wins Red Dot

Guardian Wins Red Dot

For the second year running, Massey University honours graduate and designer Annabel Goslin, 22, has won a prestigious Red Dot Design Award for her sports face protector. Last year Goslin entered an all-purpose sports…

Rugby and Much More

Rugby and Much More

The arrival of a 25 metre-long New Zealand rugby ball on Circular Quay “within cooee of the Sydney Opera House” marks one year until the 211 Rugby World Cup kicks off. As a conspicuous…

Claim to Fame

Claim to Fame

On a barista training course at Auckland’s Allpress Espresso, the Guardian’s Chris Mugan learns the flat white-making mantra: “stretch, whirlpool, surf” in the city that claims the iconic drink as their invention. “The brew…

World-class Dining

World-class Dining

“Auckland’s subtropical climate, Polynesian culture, unpolluted waters and cosmopolitan buzz have combined to create a world-class dining scene,” according to the Guardian’s food writer Kevin Gould. Gould is particularly taken with Peter Gordon’s “two,…

Book award winner

Book award winner

Auckland historian Dame Judith Binney’s Encircled Lands has been awarded the New Zealand Post Book of the Year. Encircled Lands explores the history of the Tuhoe people’s journey for autonomy. Dame Binney received $15,…

Speed Queen on Salt

Speed Queen on Salt

Christchurch-born Miriam MacMillan is the third New Zealander and first New Zealand woman to earn a “2 MPH hat”, which she claimed driving a 2.1 litre Honda CRX at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah,…

Ride of Your Life

Ride of Your Life

Heli-biking in Queenstown is “an exhilarating experience and a must for anyone visiting” the southern city, recommends the Telegraph’s Tarquin Cooper. “Visit New Zealand for rest, relaxation and rugby; unless, you’re a die-hard who…

Inspired in Jodphur

Inspired in Jodphur

Author of young adult novel The Bone Tiki, New Zealander David Hair, will launch his latest book Pyre of Queens, published by Penguin Books India, in Bangalore. Hair, who lives in New Dehli with…

Reassuring the fans

Reassuring the fans

Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson is optimistic The Hobbit will still go ahead “sometime soon” and that Warners was “making progress untangling the MGM situation”. In an interview with the Dominion Post, Jackson…

Atom Spy Claims

Atom Spy Claims

New Zealand-born DNA pioneer and Nobel Prize recipient Professor Maurice Wilkins was investigated by MI5 as a possible atom spy who had passed US nuclear secrets to the Russians. Security service files recently released…

Ever the cameraman

Ever the cameraman

Christchurch-raised film instructor Ian McIver, currently an adjunct instructor at Solano Community College and Napa Valley College in California, is leading a 12-class film discussion series at the Cameo Cinema in St Helena. The…

She Wants to Go to Chelsea

She Wants to Go to Chelsea

New Zealand women’s football captain Hayley Moorwood, 26, has joined English club Chelsea FC. Moorwood, who was also attracting interest from Chelsea’s London rivals Arsenal, was thrilled at the signing. “Joining a club like…

Smiling Assassin Woos Investors

Smiling Assassin Woos Investors

John Key, nicknamed “the smiling assassin” during his time at global exchange in London, is now using his trademark beam to woo billionaire immigrants, foreign investors and high-end tourists according to Bloomberg Markets magazine….

Celebrating clumsiness

Celebrating clumsiness

“Maori get pigeonholed into the idea they’re spiritual and telling stories like Whale Rider and Once were Warriors, quite serious stuff, but we’re pretty funny people and we never really have had an opportunity…

Fascinating portrait

Fascinating portrait

South Auckland-set film Matariki, directed by Reefton-born Michael Bennett, has been selected to screen at the opening weekend of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the Contemporary World Cinema section on September 11….

Real farms promoted

Real farms promoted

A large selection of New Zealand farmland, businesses and property will be on display in North Yorkshire in October, as part of a national road show from real estate company, Bayleys Realty Global. Bayleys…

Studying the Drain

Studying the Drain

New Zealand’s best and brightest expatriates are costing the country US$1, each through foregone tax and costs of government services such as education, according to World Bank research. Though returning New Zealand expats can…

Smeltz to Turkey

Smeltz to Turkey

New Zealand striker Shane Smeltz, 29, is leaving Australian football team Gold Coast United having signed a two-year deal with Turkish Süper Lig club Gençlerbirligi S.K. The reigning A-League Golden Boot played in United’s…

Death of a genius

Death of a genius

Thames-born scientist and obstetrician Sir Graham Collingwood Liggins has died at the age of 84. Liggins was described as one of New Zealand’s greatest scientists who undertook groundbreaking obstetrical research. Known to his friends…

Sneaker tapping tunes

Sneaker tapping tunes

Auckland electro-dance duo Kids of 88 has released their debut album Sugarpills. “Kids of 88 show Flight of the Conchords how to get it done, and done,” Brandon Diaz writes for American music…

Wine for football fans

Wine for football fans

New Zealand’s Clark Estate in the Awatere Valley has produced an official wine for the Watford Football Club or the Hornets, as they are known in the UK. Lifelong Hornets fan Peter Clark, 61,…

Hero at the crease

Hero at the crease

“It’s remarkable that a biography had not been written on one of New Zealand’s most distinctive sports figures before now,” writes The New Zealand Herald’s David Leggat after the launch of Richard Boock’s The…

Tri-Nations Clinched

Tri-Nations Clinched

New Zealand has won the Tri-Nations series beating South Africa 29-22 in Johannesburg. The hosts had led 22-17 up until the 78th minute when All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw scored a controversial try in…

In search of the real deal

In search of the real deal

“When you’re a New Zealander, or ‘Kiwi’, as they like to call themselves, you seem to take that rite-of-passage world trip for a year or two — sleeping in hostels and living out of…

Stopping the sales

Stopping the sales

New Zealand group Save Our Farms, who say local farms should not be sold to overseas investors, have launched an advertising campaign to stop foreigners buying up agricultural land. The campaign was rolled out…

In between memories

In between memories

Auckland-born novelist James McNeish, 78, is returning to the country having been in Berlin for the past year working on a memoir. McNeish will travel home to New Zealand via Australia where he is…

Buckle up team

Buckle up team

A number of All Blacks, coach Graham Henry and rugby commentator Tony Johnson feature in Air New Zealand’s latest in-flight safety video. Henry, a former secondary school headmaster, playing the role of captain,…

Laughing at the edge

Laughing at the edge

Director Taika Waititi says the humour in Boy is both colonial-outpost and self-deprecating Maori humour. “You’ve just got to laugh at awkward, crazy, painful stuff when you’ve been banished to the nether regions of…

Soul on the Outside

Soul on the Outside

Award-winning tattooist Te Tangitu Netana, 37, famed for inking UK popstar Robbie Williams, is offering his services to residents of Colchester in Essex until the end of August. Netana is currently in the area…

Hands Like Wings

Hands Like Wings

Lemi Ponifasio’s 29 work Birds with Skymirrors, which was performed by his company MAU at this year’s Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, is awarded four stars by Guardian reviewer Alice Bain. “With Skymirrors, fills…

Song from both worlds

Song from both worlds

New Zealand singer-songwriter Maisey Rika is currently touring Australia performing songs from her debut album Tohu. Often compared to Indie Arie and Sade, Rika sings in both Maori and English because she was brought…

Whale debate continues

Whale debate continues

Sea Sheppard anti-whaler Pete Bethune’s Tokyo trial “earlier this year for interfering with Japan’s annual whale hunt dominated New Zealand media, and direct action at sea connects with long-standing cultural currents to do with…

Chaucerian find

Chaucerian find

University of Otago English lecturer Dr Simone Celine Marshall has discovered a previously unidentified edition of the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, sometimes referred to as the father of English literature, and best known for…

Undead and on cover

Undead and on cover

True Blood star New Zealand-born actress Anna Paquin, 28, who plays waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the hit show, features on the latest issue of Rolling Stone, bloodied and naked in the arms of co-stars,…

Medals and a Record

Medals and a Record

Seventeen-year-old swimmer Sophie Pascoe has won four medals at the 21 IPC Swimming World Championships in Eindhoven, Netherlands, with her first gold in the women’s 1m butterfly and in world record time. She knocked…

We Must Talk About It

We Must Talk About It

New Zealand’s chief coroner Judge Neil MacLean has made “an impassioned plea for people to speak more openly about suicide calling for a re-think of laws and self imposed restrictions on what Coroners can…

Olympic gold for Barclay

Olympic gold for Barclay

Southland teenager Aaron Barclay has won gold in the men’s individual triathlon and silver with Australasian team-mate Maddie Dillon in the team race at the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Barclay, 17, who…

Rave reviews for app

Rave reviews for app

Since launching a free iPad application, which went live on July 23, APN News and Media-owned The New Zealand Herald “has earned near-rave reviews, averaging four-star ratings on Apple’s iTunes site,” The Australian’s Lara…

Taking the Sting Out

Taking the Sting Out

Gisborne-based Dive Tatapouri is defending the reputation of the short-tailed stingray, offering plucky tourists the opportunity to hand-feed the sea creatures. “They’re incredibly good-natured,” owner Dean Savage says. “It’s extremely rare for them to…

Thrill-seeker Flips

Thrill-seeker Flips

With this “insanely-extended Hart Attack backflip” (above), Palmerston North daredevil Levi Sherwood, 19, won the fifth stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour, held at Battersea Power Station in London. This is Sherwood’s…