Standing Room Only for Sunday 17 October 2021

 

12:15  The State of live festivals under Delta

Postponing, rescheduling, cancelling, even rebranding...  Organisers of the country's biggest arts, film and music festivals are having to make huge calls on the fate of their events in the light of ever more Covid-19 related roadblocks.

One major music festival has been cancelled.  The Royal New Zealand Ballet company has cancelled its planned national tour - though it will perform in Te Whanganui-a-Tara.  And the International Film Festival was forced to shut down its Auckland leg entirely.

But life goes on.   Programmes are out for the Auckland Arts Festival, and the renamed Aotearoa New Zealand Festival in the Capital.   The WOMAD world music festival is about to do the big reveal of its programme for March next year.

And the WORD Christchurch Literary Festival and Auckland's Artweek are determined to try and make sure that their shows will go on. 

Lynn Freeman talks to Meg Williams from Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts and David Inns from the Auckland Arts Festival about their plans for next year.

Simon Morris asks Catherine Fitzgerald, Chair of the New Zealand  International Film Festival Trust, why Auckland was taken from the Festival, and how affected the rest of the country has been.

And planning two "fairground rides with no safety rails" is how the organisers of two November arts events have described it.  Lynn talks with Rachael King, from Christchurch's WORD literary festival, and Deborah White, from Artweek Auckland.

 

12:48   Mandy Barker's deceptive pictures of Pitcairn's sea bottom

Plastic items from more than 25 different countries, including New Zealand, wash up on the remote Pitcairn Islands, posing a threat to a habitat that's home to unique and endangered species.

British photographer Mandy Barker visited the islands in 2019, and Aotearoa is about to see her disarmingly beautiful images of some of the six tonnes of plastic rubbish collected from the uninhabited UNESCO World Heritage-listed Henderson Island.

SHELF-LIFE is the title of the exhibition of Mandy's photos that will go on show at Auckland Museum, including pictures of toys, chess pieces, syringes, an ice skating boot and a toilet seat.

Lynn Freeman asked Mandy what makes Henderson Island unique.

SHELF-LIFE by Mandy Barker will open at Auckland Museum - anticipating a move to Level 3 Step Two - later this week.   For a limited time you can experience the exhibition online until Auckland Museum reopens. 
 

1:10 At The Movies

This week, Simon Morris reviews James Bond thriller No Time To Die, as well as Annette and The Rose Maker.

 

1:33  Yuki Kihara goes to the Venice Biennale

It'll be a year later than planned, and the artist might not be able to attend to install her work or meet the international guests.  But Yuki Kihara will be the first Pasifika artist to represent Aotearoa at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Paradise Camp is the name of her work, with themes including climate change and small island ecologies, queer rights, and giving Fa'afafine the attention and respect they have struggled to gain.

Yuki has incorporated video filmed in Samoa with a large local cast and crew, as well as photography and archival research.   

Paradise Camp has a prized location in Venice.  It's the Arsenale, one of the two main Biennale hubs.

The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa supports our Biennale artists financially and logistically .  But they'll have to make big changes because of Covid-19 restrictions.  

Chair of the Arts Council, Caren Rangi, is the Commissioner of New Zealand's presentation at the Biennale.  She tells Lynn Freeman they won't be sending attendants to Venice.  Instead they'll use locally-employed people to install and work with visitors on site.

First, Yuki Kihara explains how she made the most of the extra time to keep working on Paradise Camp.

The Venice Biennale starts on the 23rd of April next year.

 

1:50  Wild Creations is a blend of three art forms - light, music and origami

Origami as you've never seen it before...  Artist Sarah Hunter has designed giant origami light-shade installations from her photographs of her much-loved childhood stomping ground on Hawke's Bay's remote Pōrangahau coast.

Detailed photographs of the light shades will sit inside illuminated boxes, complete with a soundtrack of sounds from the area in a series of works she called EMOH - that's "Home" backwards.

Sarah has collaborated on the project with origami artist Juliet Black, musician Thomas Voyce from the Wellington band Rhombus,  and tamariki at her old school. 

The Department of Conservation chose Sarah for one of their Wild Creations residencies, where artists are invited to create work that offers Kiwis a different perspective on our motu, our country.

Lynn Freeman asked Sarah about her whanau's long association with the Pōrangahau coast, and Thomas about putting the landscape to music.

Sarah Hunter and Thomas Voyce's EMOH installation runs over Labour Day Weekend at Pōrangahau Memorial Hall, opening Thursday October 21 until Saturday October 23.   EMOH relocates to on Sunday October 24 to Pōrangahau Country Club with a bonus DJ set by Rhombus Sound System. 

 

2:06 The Laugh Track -  Anita Wigl'it

 

One of the star performers of the TV series RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under is this week's guest on the Laugh Track.

Anita Wigl'it was already the winner of Vancouver's Next Top Drag Superstar, and the owner and resident queen of Auckland's famous Caluzzi Cabaret before she was named Miss Congeniality by all her peers on Drag Race.

We like our Laugh Track guests to be congenial, so we're delighted to welcome Anita Wigl'it to the show! 

Anita Wigl'it dishes the dirt on life behind the Drag Race scenes, her evening with Adele, and what RuPaul is REALLY like!  (Very nice, apparently.)

Anita's picks include Bill Bailey, Morecambe and Wise, Dawn French and Matt Lucas, and Ken Dodd.

I know, we were surprised too!

 

 

2:25  Christchurch's Heritage Festival remembers old craft work

The popularity of the British TV series The Repair Shop - where damaged personal items are repaired by talented craftspeople - is a reminder that some skills must never be allowed to die out.

Christchurch is about to celebrate its Heritage Festival with events including workshops for printmaking, blacksmithing and colonial baking at the Okains Bay Māori and Colonial Museum on Banks Peninsula.

The Craftmasters' Festival of Heritage Crafts hopes to encourage people to give it a go, and along the way to appreciate just what goes into the handmade at a time when most things are mass produced.

Lynn Freeman spoke to blacksmith Les Schenkel  - who you'll usually find at the Blacksmith Shop at Governors Bay.  Les is concerned that his craft is dying in Aotearoa, with few if any apprenticeships offered.

And first, she talked to colonial baker Tanya Markman.  It seems there's a world of difference between modern day ovens and baking with the museum's 1860s colonial oven, made from slabs of volcanic rock.

 

2:40  Bridget van der Zijpp's novel tackles courage and denial

 

What does it really mean to be courageous?  Bridget van der Zijpp explores this in her new novel I Laugh Me Broken.

Bridget's first novel, Misconduct was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book Prize, and for the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Best First Book of Fiction. 

In I Laugh Me Broken, Ginny the narrator learns of a potential threat to her health soon before her wedding.  She faces a dilemma.  She could get tested to see if she's inherited genes for a life threatening condition.  Instead she takes off to the other side of the world, telling everyone that it's to research her next book.

Bridget van der Zijpp's novel I Laugh Me Broken is published by Victoria University Press.

 

 

2:49  In the footsteps of three iconic 60s artists 

A painter, a sculptor and an architect collaborated in the 1960s and 70s to create unique churches, chapels, schools and private houses - all with a distinctive Kiwi character.

"Big deal" you might think, until you realise we're talking about Colin McCahon, Paul Dibble and James Hackshaw.

James' daughter Bridget spoke to her father not long before he died in 1999 about the projects the three worked on. 

Later she went in search of the remaining buildings to photograph them, which has inspired a film about it.  Now she collaborates with a number of writers to tell the full story in a book called The Architect and the Artists.

Bridget tells Lynn Freeman the three men worked well together, despite very different backgrounds and personalities.

The Architect and the Artists by Bridget Hackshaw is published by Massey University Press.   

 

3:06 Drama at 3 -  The Boxer by Matthew Saville

A humorous look at the life of Robert Fitzsimmons, the Timaru blacksmith who became the first boxer to hold 'world titles' in three weight classes.  Starring Mick Rose as Old Bob and Matthew Saville as Young Bob.