News

Who knew that a brightly coloured contemporary creative twist could infuse a renewed passion for the age-old craft of crocheting, and elevate traditional Māori concepts to a whole new level of modern art? It’s happening in New Zealand, and also at Mount Eden Corrections Facility (MECF), thanks to artistic Auckland couple Rudi Robinson and... Keep Reading

Nine artists from Christchurch creative space The White Room will travel to Wellington for the opening of their exhibition, Look, on Wednesday 18 November in the Bowen House exhibition space at Parliament. Keep Reading

Home Ground is a creativity and wellbeing initiative for women who have experienced incarceration or are engaged in the justice system. As a collective, we are very proud to launch our new website: homegroundnz.com Keep Reading

An award-winning performing artist, arts projects and creative spaces nurturing mental health and wellbeing, a pioneer of accessibility in children’s theatre, and leadership in delivering arts programmes in prisons will be celebrated at Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Awards 2020, presented online for the first time by Arts Access Aotearoa on... Keep Reading

Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Awards 2020, presented online by Arts Access Aotearoa, celebrated the award recipients and also the individuals, groups and organisations who received Highly Commended certificates in several of the award categories. Keep Reading

The gafa or whakapapa and story of Wellington artist Hedy (Heidi Ankers) is vast. Her father was English/Norwegian and her mother English/Samoan. “Poor Mum. She was a singer attending University in Auckland and Dad whisked her away into obscurity to the Bay of Plenty to have a horde of children. I am the sixth of 16, nine of whom survived... Keep Reading

Crescendo, a creative space for rangatahi, has finally found a permanent home in Avondale, Auckland. Dominic Hoey, the events coordinator at Crescendo since mid-2019, likes the fact that all of Crescendo’s work will now be in one place.  Keep Reading

Judith Jones’ involvement in audio description and with Arts Access Aotearoa since 2014 have been key elements in her kete as she continues to develop as an advocate for access and inclusion in the arts. Keep Reading

Tim Bray QSM founded what became the Tim Bray Theatre Company in 1991 at the age of 27. Nearly 30 years on, it’s about to stage its one-hundredth professional production, an adaptation of Joy Cowley’s Greedy Cat. Keep Reading

Rue-Jade Morgan initially assumed he must have done something wrong when a prison psychologist greeted him with the words “So you’re Jade!” the first time the two of them met. But it quickly became clear that far doing from anything wrong the psychologist’s remark reflected his admiration for the many things Jade was doing right. Keep Reading

Being part of Northland Region Corrections Facility’s Redemption Performing Arts whānau and also training as an arts mentor with the prison’s Tuakana Teina peer mentoring programme has been life-changing for Sanity. Keep Reading

Even as a toddler Wellington performing artist Duncan Armstrong couldn’t stop dancing to music and once he got a taste of acting at primary school he was hooked. Keep Reading

After “pimping” a jacket for the Pimp My Jacket competition organised by Hutt Valley mental health support group MIX in 2018, Wellington artist Rosemarie Bowers leapt at the chance to pimp a hat for last year’s Get a Hat Get A Head exhibition held to raise awareness of mental health issues. Keep Reading

When the Hamilton-based Arts For Health Community Trust ran weekly “Zui” (Zoom meetings) for its artists during the Covid-19 lockdown, the participants were much more interested in talking to each other than in talking to the staff – and that made programme manager Cass Hendry very happy. Keep Reading

Helen Vivienne Fletcher's play, Justice is Blind, has won the teenage category of Playmarket's 2020 Plays for the Young competition. Keep Reading