Hawke’s Bay artists have collaborated to create 20 giant apple sculptures, which will feature in an upcoming art trial across Hastings city. Brazilian-born artist Mauricio Benega, who initiated the project,​ wanted to bring something to the region to highlight its reputation as the country’s biggest apple grower. With funding support from the Hastings District Council’s […]

Waikato residents with ideas for community-focussed creative projects are able to request funding to help them get their projects off the ground. The Creative Communities Scheme (CCS) has opened its most recent funding round. Projects must be arts and community focussed and take place in the city no earlier than October 13. To be eligible […]

Performers, singers and dancers are needed for Hamilton’s Christmas concert on November 26. The concert organisers are encouraging children and adults to submit videos of their acts via Facebook. The event, to be held at Garden Place, will run from 6 pm until about 8:45 pm. Once dark, a 27-metre Christmas tree will be illuminated. […]

New Zealand’s youngest national choir, the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir (NZSSC), won the title of Children’s Choir of the World at the prestigious Llangollen Eisteddfod festival in Wales last week. According to Choirs NZ, the festival is one of the world’s most inspirational cultural festivals, and has been staged annually since 1947 in Llangollen, […]

A South Korean software engineer has commemorated the retirement of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with a specially designed gravestone. Jung Ki-young designed the memorial to mark his love-hate relationship with the web browser. The headstone is engraved with Internet Explorer’s ‘e’ logo and the epitaph: “He was a good tool to download other browsers.” The memorial […]

Web-based comics from Korea and New Zealand have been nominated in the Best Webcomic section of this year’s Eisner Awards. The Eisner Awards, or Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards in full, are regarded as the comic industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. The Korean webcomic, “Navillera: Like a Butterfly,” by Hun and Jimmy, is about […]

More than 1000 signatures, from supporters in 40 countries, have been obtained on a petition to get a “white wine” emoji created. The petition, launched by New Zealand Wine Growers, will form part of a submission that the organisation plans to present to the Unicode Consortium, the body responsible for approving new emoji icons, this […]

An award-winning documentary that follows the journey of a New Zealand man who searched for his missing son in Taiwan is now playing in theatres in Taiwan. The film, titled “Phil’s Journey”, covers the experiences of New Zealand sculptor Phil Tchernegovski, whose son Reuben went missing in the Alishan area in 1998 while he was […]

Auckland Lantern Festival is being celebrated online this year after the physical version was cancelled due to New Zealand’s move to the red traffic light setting. The online programme, to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Tiger, is being launched today, which also happens to be Chinese New Year. The festival makes its online debut […]

Many have heard of Chinese New Year, but this is only part of an umbrella of Lunar New Year festivities celebrated by several East Asian and Southeast Asian communities across the country. Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the lunar calendar and this year, it falls on February 1. Tết Nguyên Đán, is the […]