Tag: travel

  • The extraordinary music from Malaita

    Disclaimer: Please be aware that some of the links in this article may show images of human remains, currently in museum collections. The people of the Southern part of Malaita, the largest land in the Solomon Islands, are called the ‘Are’are. Until an ethnomusicologist called Hugo Zemp from le Musée de l’Homme in Paris recorded…

  • Andora

    Ten years ago, an auction of Soviet space memorabilia was offered for sale by auction. The collection belonged to Andora, a German artist who, becoming fascinated by space and its exploration, completed cosmonaut training. Andora painted a Proton rocket, at the request of the Russian space agency, that was shot into space in 1992. A…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a playlist is curated to go along with the blog. The pieces on the playlist refer to articles on the blog, sometimes obviously and sometimes more obliquely. To listen, click on the player above. If you have a paid subscription to Spotify you will hear all the pieces uninterrupted. Free subscriptions will have…

  • Yto Barrada

    Yto Barrada is a Moroccan artist who lives between Tangier and New York. The artist uses, in her work, natural dyes and has created a garden estate, “The Mothership“, near Tangier, to explore dyeing with these materials. In a recent exhibition at the Pace Gallery in London, entitled “How to Plan a Garden”, Barrada made…

  • UngKlang

    Over the past ten days Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland has been hosting the World Choir Games. These, the 13th Games, bring together the largest number of choirs and nations in the world – 250 groups representing 42 countries. The event is both for competitive and non-competitive performance. On Friday the Cathedral in Wellington, St John’s, played…

  • Maija Kolsi-Mäkelä

    Maija Kolsi-Mäkelä was a Finnish textile designer who caught the imagination of an artist, researcher and writer, Mandy Pedigo. In an article published in 2020 in Surface Design Journal from the Surface Design Association, the writer explains her search for information about the designer after coming across a mention in a small booklet. The article…

  • Thandiwe Muriu

    The Kenyan artist, Thandiwe Muriu, started out in commercial photography but quickly found herself questioning what it means to be a woman through images of strength and beauty. Having struggled in making a way through a male-dominated industry, the artist began to explore portraiture through the use of everyday objects and cloth. In her latest…

  • Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

    In Central Wellington/ Pōneke stands the Cathedral of St Paul. The Cathedral is the result of decades of lobbying, land purchases, interruptions and changes in materials, as well as delays between the architectural plans and the completion of the building. The first stage was finally opened in 1964 (the architect, Cecil Wood, was appointed in…

  • From a Garden in the Antipodes

    Evelyn Hayes, the pseudonym of Mary Ursula Bethell, published a book of poems about her love of plants and gardens in 1929. These poems cemented the reputation of this New Zealand poet, who had an unusual and somewhat unorthodox life. In the verses she describes the life of gardens, those who inhabit them (including a…

  • Reminiscence and memory

    This week I am in Pōneke Wellington where Festival for the Future, an event to bring young people together, is taking place. While the group I am with is at the Festival I am researching in the National Library for a project to do with oral histories on the Coast. The Library is home to…