AMY WENG | The beginning of September marks the opening of the Asian Aotearoa Arts Hui 2018, and a three-week long celebration of diverse Asian New Zealand creative arts. Ahead of the event, past and present hui organisers Kim Lowe, Amy Weng and Kerry Ann Lee caught up to talk about how the hui has developed, what issues remain unsolved, and what hope this year’s event will bring…
AISHA JOHAN | Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan are a husband-and-wife team who emigrated from the Philippines to Australia in 2006. Their artworks often address themes of displacement, change, memory and community. Together they have exhibited at a number of international exhibitions including the 50th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia…
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…
NATASHA MATILA-SMITH | Yukari Kaihori is a Japanese artist based in Whanganui-a-Tara who creates paintings which examine the intersections between physical and metaphysical landscapes, often employing chance mark-making that invites rich associations between nature and the psychological. Her current exhibition at Corban Estate Art Centre runs until 27 May 2018…
AMY WENG | Louie Bretaña is a graduate of Elam School of Fine Arts and the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines. His work actively challenges Euro-western colonial histories through relational practices, encouraging a respectful engagement with culture via conversation and food…
AMY WENG | Ruby White will be familiar to many as the creative mastermind behind Miss Changy, a food-as-art project that has recently brought some of the most exciting pop-up culinary experiences in Tāmaki Auckland. Amy Weng spoke to White about her practice, subverting the Ford assembly line, and the art and politics of food…
On your left as you come up Great North Rd, just before Titirangi Rd going west, there is a cluster of restaurants serving great food – noodle houses, dumpling joints, a kebab shop. There’s also a dairy, a barbers, a vape store, a locksmith, Woottons Auto Accessories and two kinds of tool stores. This strip…
![At a rehearsal of OTHER [Chinese]. Photo by Julie Zhu](https://hainamana.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Rehearsal-4-450x300.jpg)
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…
AMY WENG | Asian Men Talk About Sex is three women’s mission; to challenge the mainstream media’s portrayal of ‘sexy’ by asking every-day Asian men in New Zealand to talk about their sex lives. Director Chye-Ling Huang spoke to Amy Weng about the challenges involved in creating the documentary, and what she hopes the film will help us to understand…
CHYE-LING HUANG | In July, Fresh Off the page will present Conflict Circle, Singaporean playwright Ellison Tan’s foray into the absurd. With three professional productions under her belt, Ellison’s Conflict Circle challenges the nature of theatre and the futility and absurdity of performance…
AISHA JOHAN | FX Harsono is a leading figure within the Indonesian contemporary art scene. Over the past four decades, his work has developed against the backdrop of the rise and fall of the Soeharto regime, through revolution and reformation. On the eve of Jakarta’s election, which have incited simmering racial and religious tensions in the world’s most populous Muslim country, Harsono’s practice resonates with the national search for plurality. Aisha Johan caught up with the artist to talk…
AISHA JOHAN | I am very drawn to one of your works, Pilgrimage to History, 2013. I feel that you are giving a voice to those who no longer have one, from mass grave to mass audience. Could you please tell me more about the work? FX Harsono: In the beginning, I started this project about the genocide and mass grave that I had found out about in Blitar, a city where I was born and raised…