It's commonly assumed that Māori women don't carve. Carving is a tapu occupation with its own tikanga and ritual. Women have often not been allowed to be present while a carver is working. It's a practice that continues on some building sites today. But tikanga varies and changes. The binary gender division with carving has often been broken. Last century, male mastercarvers like Pineāmine Taepa, Cliff Whiting and Paki Harrison taught women in toi whakairo, and women carvers have been written ab...
Aug 10, 2025•18 min
Two years ago this month RNZ National's Culture 101 was launched. And a guest on our very first show, introducing comedy radio drama series The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie's Botanarium was writer and comic Duncan Sarkies. Since then Duncan has published Star Gazers, his third novel, which is about the collapse of democracy amongst a society of alpaca breeders. At the end of this month Duncan is at the Word Christchurch festival. He's running a masterclass on 'Writers as Explorers', revivi...
Aug 10, 2025•10 min
Pasifika people make up almost 17% of Tamaki Makaurau Auckland's population, but Pasifika women in particular are considered underrepresented when it comes to the professional comedy scene. It's something Cook Islands-New Zealand comedian Rhiannon McCall with Samoan New Zealand producer Sarah Richards are looking to help change with a new free programme in South Auckland for women later this month. Va'ine Fresh will cover the basics of stand up, improv and stagecraft, culminating in a "low stake...
Aug 10, 2025•12 min
Arts News for 3 August 2025
Aug 03, 2025•6 min
This week we are heading to the south side of the Hokianga harbour, in Northland to the town of Rawene.
Aug 03, 2025•6 min
As private funding organisation The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi celebrates 25 years of supporting artists, what's changed with arts patronage?
Aug 03, 2025•20 min
Notes from a Fish is a surreal comedy crime caper set in the murky world of the exotic fish black market.
Aug 03, 2025•13 min
A new exhibition in Tamaki Makaurau hosted by the New Zealand Fashion Museum is set to showcase and celebrates the art of knitting and all yarn-based fashion creation.
Aug 03, 2025•13 min
30 years ago this last week organisation Arts Access Aotearoa was founded by Penny Eames to better drive access to the arts for people who can get excluded from cultural life.
Aug 03, 2025•11 min
Banksy's street art and graffiti is some of the most recognisable and iconic images of the modern art world. Although his work started in the 90s in Bristol, Banksy's identity remains a mystery.
Jul 27, 2025•18 min
This week for our Regional Wrap on Culture 101 we visit the beautiful Waikanae River on the Kapiti Coast, and the settlements on its banks of Waikanae and Otaihanga.
Jul 27, 2025•8 min
Weaver, sculptor and academic, Maureen Lander, is currently exhibiting at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. But as the title suggests He Tukutuku Auahatanga: Maureen Lander with Community, it isn't just Maureen alone but rather a collaboration with more than 100 artists and 70 children to create four large-scale fibre installations.
Jul 27, 2025•13 min
Can we control the weather? Or, do we need to get better again at reading it for ourselves, rather than relying on technology?
Jul 27, 2025•20 min
Madeleine Chapman will be stepping down from her role as editor of news and culture website The Spinoff later this year.
Jul 27, 2025•17 min
It's one of the greatest and most famous love stories and we already know how it ends before it begins. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is now on stage with ATC, re-envisioned in a 60s thriller, high fashion style.
Jul 20, 2025•19 min
Each week Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of the country for our regional wrap. Today Perlina heads to Greytown - which is celebrating it's Festival of Christmas and heading into the final week.
Jul 20, 2025•7 min
Artist Jo Randerson calls them Secret Art Powers. Superpowers that everyone, individually and collectively, has access to.
Jul 20, 2025•19 min
Most people will recognise former All Blacks hooker Keven Mealamu for his sporting success but now, a decade after retiring he's gone from the All Blacks to the Arts Council; being appointed to the board of CNZ earlier this year.
Jul 20, 2025•15 min
If you've travelled along Transmission Gully, north of Poneke Wellington - you might have noticed through your side window giant objects starting to pop up on the western hills north of Pauatahanui. These are on the property of well-known economist, businessman and philanthropist Gareth Morgan and his whanau.
Jul 20, 2025•12 min
Arts news for 13 July 2025.
Jul 13, 2025•5 min
As avid op shoppers will know, secondhand and antique stores still turn up treasures.
Jul 13, 2025•21 min
MOTAT's Te Puawānanga Exhibtion was recently named International Exhibition of the Year at the Museum and Heritage Awards in London.
Jul 13, 2025•20 min
This week - we're heading south to Mosgiel - and more specifically to Taieri. Matt Brennan is starring as Inspector Pratt in Taieri Dramatic Society's production of Peter Gordon's Death by Fatal Murder. Booking l Fire Station Theatre - Home of the Taieri Dramatic Society
Jul 13, 2025•6 min
The Youth America Grand Prix - The YAGP is one of the world's largest competitions for ballet dancers hoping to land scholarships around the world.
Jul 13, 2025•17 min
Last month, the grand reopening of the Oceania Wing at the Metropolitan Musem of Art in New York saw Kiwis and locals gather to celebrate 500 years of art from 140 indigenous countries. Expats and art lovers flocked to the Met and New Zealand, New York-based chef, Anthony Hoy Fong, was tasked to represent Aotearoa. His food stall was part of a large pop-up showcasing culinary traditions from across the Pacific. Hoy Fong was raised in Auckland and worked with his parents at their Fruit World stor...
Jul 13, 2025•20 min
From a farm in Waikato to the frontlines of the Ukraine war, former Newshub Europe correspondent Lisette Reymer never expected to be using her hostile environments training when taking on the job.
Jul 13, 2025•16 min
Ranging from whale vomit to Victorian mourning jewellery, Una Cruickshank's often astonishing book of essays The Chthonic Cycle meditates on the wonders of the earth and our use and abuse of them.
Jul 06, 2025•24 min
Gabrielle Huria is Ngai Tuahuriri and Ngai Tahu and lives with her whanau at Tuahiwi in North Canterbury. She is part of a major new exhibition created by Ngai Tahu with photographer Anne Noble at Dunedin Public Art gallery until October, Unutai e! Unutai e! and has just published her debut collection of poetry Pakiaka with Canterbury University Press. She spoke with Culture 101's Mark Amery.
Jul 06, 2025•24 min
Faye Saunders is the owner of The Little Gallery in Tairua and joins Culture 101.
Jul 06, 2025•5 min
Keith Moon's drum kit, a child's rocking horse, a Vivienne Westwood gown, buddhas, a slice of a '70s housing estate, the David Bowie archive: it's no wonder the Victoria and Albert's brand new East London storage facility is being dubbed the 'Museum of Absolutely Everything'.
Jul 06, 2025•18 min
