The fifth installment of Epigraph is a short collection of poems by Grace Yee. Epigraph is made possible with the support of Mātātuhi Foundation…
Asian New Zealand Art & Culture
Tagged Chinese diaspora
The Brake House
DILOHANA LEKAMGE | The Brake House by Ron Sang is a landmark of Aotearoa architecture. However, viewing the Brake House as a meeting-point between professional and cross-cultural exchange makes the home a conceptually complex site…
What’s the pH balance of yin + yang?
A poem by VANESSA CROFSKEY
Enhancing mana through visual art
TESSA MA’AUGA | Mana is a significant concept in Aotearoa and the Pacific region. It has often been translated as ‘power’, ‘prestige’, and ‘authority’. Unlike the word ‘power’ though, mana as a concept has more quickly evolved away from associations with ‘domination’, ‘manipulation’ and ‘control’…
In Conversation with Renee Liang and Hweiling Ow
AMY WENG | What can a farcical relationship between a man and a woman teach us about language, loss and living? This winter, Eugène Ionesco’s Les Chaises (The Chairs), has been adapted by four Aotearoa theatremakers into Pākeha English, Te Reo Māori, Samoan and Cantonese. Editor Amy Weng caught up with the Cantonese season producer Renee Liang, and director Hweiling Ow, to reflect on the importance of language on and off the stage…
On the Ancestor’s Trail
AUSTIN TSENG | An account of the New Zealand Chinese Association’s (NZCA) SS Ventnor Tour, 7-9 April 2018. In the early 20th century, the lives of Chinese migrants in New Zealand were often fraught with difficulty. Not only did they have to deal with the struggles of making a living in a new land, but also significant…
New Zealand Chinese Performing Arts: A Passing of the Torch
AUSTIN TSENG | The year thus far has been quite a treat for connoisseurs of stage productions. This output has been notable for the coverage of a much-neglected history. The releases of opera The Bone Feeder, play The Mooncake and the Kumara and “large-scale documentary theatre” piece OTHER [chinese] have given us a compelling trifecta of interpretations of the Chinese experience in Aotearoa…
Constant Conversations: Reflecting on Gum Sarn
MARGAUX WONG | This exhibition, like all things, began with a conversation. Late last year, after one of my family’s frequent visits to my workplace – they really come to see the dog Mia, not me – a conversation emerged about curating an exhibition on New Zealand Chinese. As our exchange strayed to food, as almost all of my conversations do, we began ruminating on the contributions the Chinese had made to this country…
![At a rehearsal of OTHER [Chinese]. Photo by Julie Zhu](https://hainamana.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Rehearsal-4-450x300.jpg)
The voices of OTHER [Chinese]
OTHER [Chinese] isn’t your standard night out at the theatre. Directed by Alice Canton, and developed over the course of a year in consultation with individuals from various Chinese communities, OTHER [Chinese] is a work of documentary theatre that explores what it is to be Chinese in Auckland in the here and now. Stories that…