Blog | Biting The Big Apple

With a self-professed love of waste, Auckland artist Brydee Rood took her work to a New York festival which questions our culture of consumption.

Ila Couch talks to Rood about her impressions of a city where even the smallest purchase comes with a plastic bag. Read More »

Biting the Big Apple: Ila Couch takes the Lomo LC-A for a test drive around the streets of New York City and rediscovers her love of analog photography. Read More »

When you're a freelancer finding work is hard work but are there some projects that just aren't worth taking?  Should morals and ethics be considered when you take a job?

Ila Couch in New York asks her friends and colleagues what they think about turning down work for ethical reasons. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

Over a tasty brunch at Brooklyn Label NZ artist and designer David Thomas introduces me to his partner Ginny Braun and musician friend Steve Abel. It’s the first time we’re all meeting so I’ve bought along my good friend and fellow New Zealander, artist Lorene Taurerewa.
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Ila Couch talks to Creative Arts Therapist and spoken word poet Jocelyn Bates about her work with medicated youth in the juvenile justice system and the poem Medication, inspired by her experiences. Read More »

Last night as my deadline for this blog loomed and my inbox housed a friendly reminder of that fact, I turned to my good friends Penelope, a musician and Katie, a writer and told them they were going to help me out. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

Since arriving in the States more than six years ago, I've worked on a variety of television genres including Talk, Reality, Dating, Food and Home Renovation shows. Most of these jobs have come by way of referral from a network of freelancers I've worked with in the past. For example: the Story Producer on Wife Swap recommended me as a Field Producer on a home improvement show which led to the Series Producer of said show passing on my resume to the Producer of a Science Show. And that is how last week I came to be on a small island in California's Mono Lake, talking to scientists about micro-organisms. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

In the early hours of the morning I'm woken by the sound of street sweepers and garbage trucks in collection of the day's refuse. If "all the world is a stage" as Shakespeare says then the city's sanitation workers are its stage hands, clearing the streets for tomorrow's performance. Acts include: shopping, eating, protesting, undercover drug busts and though not scheduled, probably a death or two.

Death, specifically loss and transformation, is on the program of this year's Mostly Mozart Festival at the Lincoln Center and in keeping with this theme is Requiem, a performance by New Zealand-based dance troupe MAU. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

When I first arrived in New York City it took me a while to adjust to the idea of talking up my skills to prospective employers.

After meeting with an Executive Producer who began rearranging her desk part way through my job interview I thought I should employ the help of an American friend to tell me where I was going wrong. Following a mock interview she concluded I needed practice telling people how good I was, something Americans excel at. Read More »

It's 2:39am and it's a good thing I didn't quit the coffee today because I'm struggling with a few technical troubles that are taking the shine off the fact I finished editing my first video for TBI. Last month I interviewed Auckland artist Mike Davison who was in town exhibiting work inspired by his seven-year stint in New York City. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

We're in Brooklyn somewhere - at the corner of Freedom and Bushwick Ave, says Phil Hadfield bass player for Auckland band Cut Off Your Hands. Two hours earlier I had been out scoping the neighbourhood for a quiet spot to conduct an interview, asking everyone I passed where the nearest park was. I wasn't having any luck until I spied a tree off in the distance and like a sailor in search of land discovered "The Freedom Triangle." Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

It's 2:39am and it's a good thing I didn't quit the coffee today because I'm struggling with a few technical troubles that are taking the shine off the fact I finished editing my first video for TBI. Last month I interviewed Auckland artist Mike Davison who was in town exhibiting work inspired by his seven-year stint in New York City. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

I've noticed people in New York City crinkle their noses when you mention Texas. It's like they have a hard time disassociating the State's most unpopular resident from regular Texans which is ironic since people outside the United States tend to hold all Americans accountable for the President's actions. Me, I don't mind Texas which is a good thing because on short notice that's where I wound up for work this week. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

This weekend I drove three hours to Baltimore for a new show I'm starting work on. I have resigned myself to the endless grey highways replicated in every city I've encountered in this country but the one thing I can't come to terms with is roadside advertising. It used to be just huge static Billboards vying for your visual attention but now American drivers are assaulted with the electronic versions. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

Spend a concentrated amount of time in New York City and you're likely to develop tunnel vision. I made that discovery ten years ago while on a train ride to New Jersey. As the city's skyscrapers gave way to fields I experienced the oddest sensation: my eyes stretching to take in the expanding horizon. Without knowing it I had been blinkered. Blinkered by the city. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

I'm late. Late for a meeting with Lyttleton musician Lindon Puffin. In town for two days, he's already waiting for me at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park while I'm stuck on mass transit, fifteen minutes late texting him I'm still another fifteen minutes away. When I finally emerge an optimistic search begins for a guy who looks like my Great Uncle Milton circa 1950. Read More »

By Ila Couch in New York

In January of 1997 I ripped from the pages of a magazine, a horoscope I didn't believe a single word of. Move to a new country? I barely had any savings in the bank. Leave my dream job and a three-year relationship? Highly unlikely. Was fate written in the stars or was I a weakling to the power of suggestion? Who knows but within five short months I quit my job, ended my relationship and with my mother's blessing used the money she loaned me to buy a car, for a plane ticket. Since leaving home I have lived on a reservation in Canada, settled in the UK for four years and now live in the United States where I work in New York City as a freelance television producer. Read More »