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The Big Idea | Te Aria Nui is free to join and you can share your news & views, events and jobs & opportunities as well as show your work, all at the push of a button. You can also create a profile and connect with New Zealand’s arts talent and creative enterprise. Haere Mai, Welcome!

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  • From rap artists and performance poets to poetry slams and 24-hour poetry marathons, Friday 30 July marks a vintage year for National Poetry Day with more events than ever before happening throughout the country. Read More »

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News & Views

  • An update from the Auckland Arts and Culture Working Group on the Auckland governance transition and issues related to arts and culture in the new Auckland Council.
  • KINA Gallery presents new work by Jacqueline Elley on show from July 15. Elley’s artwork explores water and light in varied ways through realist paintings and abstract light boxes.

  • Ask writer/director Simone Horrocks a question about making After the Waterfall, her debut feature film based on UK writer Stephen Blanchard’s 1999 novel The Paraffin Child.

Special Feature

  • Like a swooning teenager in his first slow dance, Simon Zhou attended the 2010 New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland with clammy-palmed criticism and reviews that shared his love for the movies.

  • Rowan Pierce’s Bethankit focuses on the traditions and rituals of Scottish culture.
    Quarters, a set of four evocative short films made by students in their last year of Design at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, is at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (Wellington).

Smashing Up

By Mark Amery

On Saturday, alongside other strangers, I had the pleasure in the name of art of taking a sledgehammer and axe to James R Ford’s cursed black Nissan Primera. As widely reported he’d bought the vehicle off Trade Me and it had caused him nothing but trouble. Read More »

Inside: Work

Kumeu Art in the Garden

From shrinking violets to shining stars, there's jobs and opportunities for all different personality types Inside: Work this week. Read More »

The Art of Funny

Renowned US comedy teacher and consultant Steve Kaplan discussed the mechanics behind the laughs at the Script to Screen Writer’s Room in June. Read More »

One Kiwi's determination to make a difference

Ray Avery | Rebel with a Cause

Today a successful businessman, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and humanitarian, Ray Avery shares, for the first time, his own heartbreaking childhood and inspirational story of one man’s determination to change the world in this candid and often laugh-out-loud funny memoir, ‘Rebel with a Cause’— in store from 13 August. Read More »