May is for Marlon… and music

It’s been a big couple of weeks for musicians and songwriters in Ōtautahi – which is appropriate given that May is NZ Music Month. Big congratulations are in order for the many local acts nominated for this year’s Aotearoa Music Awards, which are coming up on 28 May. The artists nominated are keeping alive the tradition of producing great music in Christchurch. Special mention must go to Marlon Williams, who has seven nominations and was also recently awarded the Taite Music Prize, so massive congrats to him and to all of those talented people representing Ōtautahi.

Music at the library

You don’t necessarily think of a library as a music venue, but the city’s central library, Tūranga, is hosting some special events this month including open-mic sessions, live performances and workshops. The library also has some fantastic resources to help local musicians in their creative spaces area – including a recording studio which has been a huge bonus for young singer-songwriters in the region.

Going Local comes to Christchurch

On 20 May, Independent Music NZ is hosting a panel discussion and networking session for musicians at Space Academy. If you've ever wanted to know more about the music industry – how it works, who to talk to, what you need, why things happen and where to look for help, you should attend. As well as a panel discussion session there an opportunity to meet one-on-one with a selection of delegates from the industry: Rachel Ashby, Dylan Pellett, Jeff Newton, Dean Cameron, Mike Hall and Eliana Gray. It's free but you need to register here. 

Sound installation at Toi Auaha

In celebration of the wider sonic arts, Toi Auaha is hosting two sound exhibitions in its temporary Reception Space Gallery. Maree Quinn’s ‘The Road is the Site of Many Journeys’ meditative quadraphonic field-recording soundscape explores concepts of memory and place, perception and sound. This piece retraces the sonic ghosts of her Whakapapa on the West Coast, inviting the audience to drop in and out of her road trip, in a form of temporal openness. Her soundscape opens 14 May.

This is followed by Erin “Rails” Voice’s multi-speaker sonic conversation installation opening Thursday 28 May. Voice is an emerging music and audio artist and MAINZ graduate who describes themselves as a gender-abolitionist, transgender, eco-anarcho-communist sonomancer. In this piece, the audience encounters a group of audio speakers, potentially eavesdropping on private conversations.

Darkroom's free artist development series is back

Did you know that even emerging bands that have just started gigging can still make royalties from playing at local venues? On 13 May Mike Hall, the NZ Director of Member Services for APRA will explain what APRA is and what they do for musicians. This is part of a monthly series for musicians, and will be super informal and friendly. Folks from the music community of any ability or experience level are welcome (under 18s must be accompanied by a legal guardian) and there will be free snacks.

Echo Chamber at Darkroom

A group of local musicians are busy learning songs by other locals, ahead of the sixth annual Christchurch Echo Chamber, which will take place at Darkroom on Saturday 30 May. Feather Shaw of Darkroom has organised the event every year since 2021. “We have many regulars at Darkroom, but they’re sometimes a bit compartmentalised," she says, "we have our dedicated experimental noise night regulars, our goth night regulars, our punk regulars, and our cabaret regulars, and each of those groups might not necessarily be in the space at the same time. So, events like Darkroom Holiday Special and Echo Chamber are really special because we have so many different genres and pockets of the music industry represented side by side in a line up.”

Have your say!

The Christchurch City Council Toi Ōtautahi Community Arts Team is gathering information from local artists, arts organisations and businesses. The aim is to better understand participation, and the data will be used to advocate locally, regionally and nationally for better support of the arts in our city. The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete online.

Uniting the city’s art precinct

The Isaac Theatre Royal, The Court Theatre, Showbiz Christchurch, and Christchurch City Libraries joined forces for an ambitious initiative that places the Ōtautahi performing arts precinct at the heart of arts education in Aotearoa. Creative Connections launched a two-day pilot programme in late April that immersed 150 secondary school students in a series of workshops, backstage experiences, and activations across venues. Andy Brigden, Head of Programming at the Isaac Theatre Royal and Project Lead, says “Creative Connections is about more than workshops, it’s about showing young people that they can explore pathways into arts careers.”

While the pilot focused on secondary students, the long-term vision is an annual week-long, multi-disciplinary performing arts festival starting next year, expanding to include primary and tertiary students, more arts organisations, and disciplines. “The vision is for Creative Connections to become an event on the national arts education calendar and a model for what’s possible when a city’s arts leaders work together,” says Andy Brigden.

Rachael King releases new book 

Massive congratulations to author Rachael King whose latest book has just been released by Simon & Schuster. ‘Song of the Saltings’ is "an atmospheric folk horror fantasy set in a world both terrifying and mysterious". And a heads up that Rachael will be in conversation with the New York Times bestselling writer RF Kuang on 21 May as part of the WORD Christchurch Autumn season! 

The first issue of Attention Studies is out

Over the past couple months, a group of almost 40 writers have been gathering at The Physics Room in Christchurch for Attention Studies. From these workshops, they’ve developed a monthly publication that responds to the current cultural climate, across art, poetry, music, performance and other areas. The first issue is out now, in print for free at The Physics Room, Samoa House Library in Auckland and Blue Oyster in Dunedin, or as a PDF online.

Two local Springboards

Artist and designer Steven Junil Park and poet Isla Huia, both based in Ōtautahi, have received Springboard Awards from The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi. The awards aim to kickstart sustainable arts careers at a formative stage of their practice with a $15,000 gift and mentorship from a senior artist.

Geo Thompson-Skipworth fills new role at The Physics Room

Geo Thompson-Skipworth (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu), an artist living in Ōhinehou, Ōtautahi, is the new Kaimanaaki Access Coordinator, a role supported by the Rātā Foundation. Previously she was the Weekend Gallery Supervisor, and she also works as a Visitor Host at Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery and runs The Green Room.

CoCA presents Jess Nicholson

In this solo exhibition, Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers), ceramic artist Jess Nicholson explores recycled, reclaimed and collected whenua materials. They pay particular attention to the non-linear transformation of the materials through the old pottery adage "clay remembers". This saying, usually used in a technical context, also speaks to the te ao Māori belief that we are born from, belong, and ultimately will return to the land. See it before it closes on 17 May. 

What These Walls Remember

Through lively oil paintings, Sophie Postles explores the intimate complexity of the domestic interior – not as a collection of objects, but as a vessel for lived experience. They visualise the quiet, felt presence of a room, revealing the layers of history and memory embedded in the familiar. Her show is on the walls at the Upstairs Gallery at City Art Depot. 

Tapa reimagined

Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka's new show, MONO, is currently showing at Jonathan Smart Gallery. The show features three large tapa alongside new smoke and spiderweb paintings. Tapa are prepared by Stone’s sisters in Tonga, then sent south to Ōtautahi, where Stone goes to work upon them with his distinctive mix of red clay, dyes, Indian ink, charcoal and oil paint.

Each tapa is covered in mono. And Stone riffs upon this by applying many more mono. His however, is a process of willful collage. Cut small, coloured and applied in patterns, I’m reminded of early modernist collages by Braque and others. The visual tradition of Tongan tapa is more abstract than that of Fiji, Rarotonga or Niue. Maka’s work continues this tradition. His vocabulary of circles, diamonds and bold blocks of colour including plenty of black is a powerful blend of Pacifica and western visual cultures – a language both contemporary and hybrid, in which Maka is now wonderfully proficient and provocative. MONO will run until 23 May.

Street art reaches Oxford Gallery 

This month the Oxford Gallery in the Waimakariri district is hosting tattoo artist Morks. Morks was born and raised in Hawkes Bay, and settled at the foothills of the Southern Alps. A frequent fisherman and outdoorsman, Morks is an artist who creates his work using various materials and mediums from large scale murals using aerosol paints, wild multi-layered abstract acrylic and oil canvases, wooden sculptures, hand painted skateboards and merchandise. Morks will paint the Oxford Gallery frontage throughout May as a tribute to his friend and provocateur the late Philip Trusttum.

More from Morks…

The Central Art Gallery is presenting ‘Two-Way Street' in May. The exhibition brings together works by the late Philip Trusttum, Morks, and Luca McDonnell. The show celebrates the relationship between mentor and mentee.

Homestudio by Objectspace

Home Studio explores the blurred boundaries between domestic and working spaces, bringing together artists who produce work from, within, or for the home. The gallery is approached as a domestic interior, considering how artists work within home environments, where making, the objects we live with, and everyday life are symbiotically entwined. Curated by Daegan Wells and featuring works by 12 Aotearoa artists, the exhibition runs to June at Sir Miles Warren Gallery.

One Wall at CoCA

Head along to 'One Wall', an exhibition supporting a cohort of seven emerging Waitaha Canterbury artists to showcase their work on CoCA's annex wall. Between May and December, one artist + one wall + one work enables a four week rotation of local artists with diverse practices to share work with the Ōtautahi community. The exhibiting artists are Nicholas Burry, Marie Porter, Evelyn Fink, Jamie Price, Lily-Rose Claypole, Sarah Rowlands and Anna Bruce.

One for the Littlies...

You can trust Cubbin Theatre to come up with another creative idea on how to entertain children – their latest show 'Me and My Nana' has been created from workshops with real grandparents in the Christchurch community. As with all Cubbin shows, it's a lively story, told with clever props, simple language and nostalgic tunes, and this show celebrates the unique love children share with their grandparents.

Resourceful Craft programme of workshops, run by Rekindle Charitable Trust, deliver craft workshops teaching resourceful skills for the wellbeing of people and planet, based in community venues. They’re seeking expressions of interest from craftspeople interested in joining the teaching team as independent contractors.