Capital 71

CAPITAL TA L E S O F T H E C I T Y

SEVEN DAY RENO WINTER 2020

The W h a re issue

ISSUE 71

ARTY MAHI

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DEBS METSON SELLS WITH AN ARTFUL EYE Meet Debs Metson: Sales Associate at New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty in Wellington, with a vibrant passion for people, property and interiors. To date, Debs has achieved over $150 Million worth of sales, resulting in many satisfied clients.

What sets you apart from others in your field?

My passion for preparing properties for sale. No stone is left unturned - from painting, to refurbishing kitchens, bathrooms and landscaping. It’s all in the details, and astute buyers look for them. Presenting a property to the market isn’t only about being with the vendor every step of the way, it’s also about helping potential buyers identify their needs and desires in a home.

Tell us about the team of people you work with who assist you in preparing properties prior to bringing them to market?

The presentation of a property is about creating an environment that buyers can visualise themselves in.

To do that, my team is made up of many disciplines. I’ve been working with my team for 15 years. I trust them implicitly to oversee any required renovations.

To create a wow factor, we often mix client’s furniture with select pieces from a high-end home staging

company. As tastes are constantly evolving, I strive to achieve an individualised, curated vibe that matches the tone or era of the home and creates an experience for the buyer.

Photo and video content is paramount. I have a select group of photographers I use to capture properties in their best light. I take care of writing the ads myself. I try to present homes in a way that grabs attention; the way they’re communicated should be treated the same.

How has working for New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty been an asset to you?

New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty has unrivalled international reach, unparalleled marketing and a vast global network. We are in the unique position of being able to connect local vendors with expats looking to return home; a global footprint is crucial in reaching that market.

All in all, our brand provides an unrivalled experience.

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CAPITAL The stories of Wellington

W

hat a different world we are now publishing into. Or is it? It seems the same in many respects, but lockdown has entered our world as a pre and post expression of time. During that time some titles have folded. Our sales and subscriptions have been strong during the lockdown and we have made a commitment to continue with print. Thank you all for your support. During lockdown, we have further developed our Capital website to broaden our publishing base. It has garnered a lot of very positive feedback, and usage is exceeding our targets. Capitalmag.co.nz has been a great effort from our small and committed team. Shalee Fitzimmons led the project. I thank her, and Luke Browne, Francesca Emms and Benn Jeffries for their work.

Covid-19 has meant some adjustments to our schedule and to our size. You will notice this winter issue is slighter than usual, but there are silver linings. It’s chock full of great Matariki reading. To show our support for the annual celebration we have again translated one of our signature articles. This year it is Tales of the City, with Hori, p 18. Our thanks to the Creative Communities Funding Scheme for helping make this happen.

Māori performance artist Shannon Ao talks to Hanahiva Rose about how language inspires his work, and how the iterations of each work unfold.

Although we weren’t able to print our popular May House issue, we have added some of it to this issue. Sarah Catherall and Francesca Emms highlight projects ranging from renovations to refurbishments.

We haven’t forgotten the inner you. Our very popular food section is there, with some wonderful Matariki fusion kaimoana from food-writer duo Nikki and Jordan Shearer.

We all hope that as the levels of lockdown drop away, the life of the region moves up a gear and we can all find our new normal.

See you in August.

Subscriptions Subscription rates $89 (inc postage and packaging) 10 issues

New Zealand only To subscribe, please email accounts@capitalmag.co.nz or visit capitalmag.co.nz/shop

Contact Us Phone +64 4 385 1426 Email editor@capitalmag.co.nz Website www.capitalmag.co.nz Facebook facebook.com/CapitalMagazineWellington Twitter @CapitalMagWelly Instagram @capitalmag Post Box 9202, Marion Square, Wellington 6141 Deliveries 31–41 Pirie St, Mt Victoria, Wellington, 6011 ISSN 2324-4836 Produced by Capital Publishing Ltd

Alison Franks Editor

This publication uses vegetable based inks, and FSC® certified papers produced from responsible sources, manufactured under ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems

The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. Although all material is checked for accuracy, no liability is assumed by the publisher for any losses due to the use of material in this magazine.

Copyright ©. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Capital Publishing Ltd.

4

T O P S E C R E T

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Staff Managing editor Alison Franks

Featured contributors

editor@capitalmag.co.nz

Campaign coordinators Haleigh Trower haleigh@capitalmag.co.nz Emily Wakeling emily@capitalmag.co.nz Factotum John Bristed

john@capitalmag.co.nz

Art director Shalee Fitzsimmons shalee@capitalmag.co.nz Designer Luke Browne

design@capitalmag.co.nz

Writer Francesca Emms

journalism@capitalmag.co.nz

Editorial assistant Benn Jeffries

hello@capitalmag.co.nz

Accounts Tod Harfield

accounts@capitalmag.co.nz

Contributors

V I C T O R I A B I R K I N S H AW Ph oto g r aph er

H A N A H I VA R O S E Writer

Victoria is a photographer who has worked editorially, commercially and on self-directed documentary stories for publication and exhibition. She has worked extensively in New Zealand, the Pacific and the UK, where she was based for seven years. She now lives in Wellington.

Hanahiva is an art historian and writer from the islands of Ra’iātea and Huahine and the people of Te Atiawa and Ngāi Tahu. She has been widely published for her work on Māori and Pacific art practices in Aotearoa.

TA M A H O U M C G A RV E Y Te Re o tr an sl ator

E M I L Y WA K E L I N G C amp ai g n c o ordi n ator

Melody Thomas, Janet Hughes, John Bishop, Anna Briggs, Sarah Lang, Deirdre Tarrant, Craig Beardsworth, Griff Bristed, Dan Poynton, Sarah Catherall, Chris Tse, Claire Orchard, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Harriet Palmer, Sharon Greally, Jess Scott, Claire O’Loughlin, Annie Keig, Chev Hassett, Joram Adams, Sanne Van Ginkel, Rachel Helyer Donaldson, Matthew Plumber, Fairooz Samy

Stockists Pick up your Capital in New World, Countdown and Pak‘n’Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Commonsense Organics, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Whitcoulls, Wellington Airport, Interislander and other discerning region-wide outlets.

Distribution: john@capitalmag.co.nz.

Submissions We welcome freelance art, photo, and story submissions. However we cannot reply personally to unsuccessful pitches.

Tamahou (interpreter, teacher) is the secretary of Te Kahui Whakamaori Incorporated Society and the chairman of the Tūhoe Festival Committee.

He formerly worked at the Ministry for Culture in Heritage and Māori Television.

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Emily is a keen coffee drinker, online shopper and traveller who found her way to Wellington as a young student, then never left. As Capital’s campaign coordinator, you’ll find her around the city with the latest Capital issue and always ready for a chat.

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C O N T E N T S

10 LETTERS 12 CHATTER 14 NEWS BRIEFS 16 NEW PRODUCTS

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HOME SICK Jade Townsend makes art that brings her home

28

ST R I P P E D BAC K & FILLED UP Cafe queen Katie Richardson and her Houghton Bay home

18 TALES OF THE CIT Y Through the darkness with Hohepa (Hori) Thompson.

Te reo translation, page 20.

36

RENO 22 LOCKDOWN 25 CULTURE

Two historic buildings get a freshen up

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S PA C E I N VA D E R S One apartment, 30-square-metres, four family members, seven days

C O N T E N T S

69 RE-VERSE Oscar Upperton introduces Is it hard to follow your heart when you have three? by Claudia Jardine

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R E V I VA L HOUSE

62

From clubhouse to family home

SHEARERS’ TA B L E

53 HOME BRIEFS

70

Haku, ginger and chilli dumplings

WA L K I N G B A C K WA R D S

54

Performance artist and teacher Shannon Te Ao repeats himself

OPEN BO OK Architect Ken Davis calls for a common sense solution to Wellington City Library

58 BUG ME 60 EDIBLES 66 BY THE BOOK

76 WELLY ANGEL 78 WĀHINE 80 PUZZLED

H O L I S T I C T H E R A P I E S , O R G A N I C H E R B A L T E A , N AT U R A L S K I N C A R E , A R O M AT H E R A P Y, B E S P O K E B L E N D S & W O R K S H O P S OPEN

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DAYS

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801

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CUBA

S T R E E T,

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SHOP

ONLINE

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W E L L I N G T O N A P O T H E C A RY. C O . N Z

L E T T E R S

C O N SU LTAT IO N C O N ST E R NAT IO N I wonder if your readers are aware of the swarm of temporary “pop up” cycle lanes that are about to descend on Wellington city and suburbs. The latest plan is to install pop up lanes on nearly all of Victoria Street (turning one lane into cycles and buses only), most of the Miramar Peninsular, a lovely wide section of Onepu Road, Evans Bay Parade and Brooklyn Road – also a lovely wide road with room for all users already. Though the pedestrians could do with a bit more footpath.

The council has asked for feedback on these plans, and in the case of Brooklyn Road in particular, without actually publishing the proposed design until 46 hours prior to submissions closing.

Furthermore the council is only allowing 14 days for feedback instead of the usual consultation time. There are many affected users that haven't heard about these proposals as they don't have email, aren't on social media and can't read the paper as the library and many cafes are closed.

How is this consultation? The only people that seem to know about the plans from the get go is the cycling lobby and the council officers/Councillors. For the rest of us it was a surprise and not a lot of time to educate ourselves on what was proposed.

There are many in the community who are affected by each and every one of the proposals not least the council’s own tenants, businesses and every single other road user including pedestrians – all in the name of social distancing. Really? Has the council learnt nothing from the Island Bay cycle lane fiasco?

Sarah Morgan-Brown (details supplied) N EW R E C RU I T I’ve seen your magazine around a lot, but it wasn’t until I was locked up that I actually sat down and read my girlfriend’s copy of it. I didn’t expect to find it so interesting, probably because I thought it was a magazine for women. I particularly liked the story about Wellington’s fountains, and the one about the off-grid house. I also liked the crossword, which was much more difficult than it looked and now I’ll have to buy the next issue to get the answers (very clever).

Hooked (name and details supplied) L OV E D UP I just want to share my appreciation for Capital magazine, I love the tone of it. Favourite articles this time are “Jumping Spider”, and “Fool No One”.

Anthea Grob (details supplied)

shelve it like you mean it

Send letters to editor@captalmag.co.nz with the subject line Letters to Ed

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S E C TCI HO AN T TH EE RA D E R

L o c kd ow n special

One

We l l y w o r d s

Overheard During Lockdown...

A father herding a gaggle of small children through the park was heard yelling “bubble formation!” every time another person approached.

In line for Stokes Valley New World, a man was observed attempting what can only be described as a “bro handshake,” from which the recipient recoiled, telling him “Bro, you know we can’t do that.” “What do you mean?

Do what?” “You know… that. I can’t, My missus says I’m not allowed to.”

A flatmate who maintained daily “runs” was later spotted sporting mysterious scratches down his back, which may or may not have been acquired during surreptitious assignations.

Three O n l i n e l ove During Level 4 our little team developed, designed, and built a brand new website – capitalmag.co.nz – which was no mean feat considering we had home-schooling, rural wifi, puppy training, and pandemic-anxiety to deal with.

We hoped to get a good number of visitors, but were absolutely blown away by the response. The essence of Capital has always been to “love local,” and it feels amazing to know y’all love us too.

Tw o

Spider plant As we put together our Whare issue, there was a lot of debate over the best house plant for Wellingtonians. Monstera? Too big. Peace lily?

Too mainstream. Cactus? Too prickly. Orchid?

Too fragile. In the end the humble spider plant (chlorophytum comosum) was named Capital Best House Plant 2020. It will happily grow in almost any conditions, including damp dark Welly flats, removes common household airborne toxins, and adds a touch of 90s kitsch to your kitchen. When it’s thriving long, thin, green-and-white-striped leaves and little white flowers will gush over the edge of the pot. And when you forget about it for seven months it will look pretty much the same.

Four

Hold me closer Tiny Dancer was launched in the middle of lockdown by Nozomi Sakuma. From her little Wellington studio Nozomi makes linen clothing for babies and children, and most of her handmade items are unisex – think overalls, bloomers, bubble suits, pants, and tops. To reduce waste Nozomi makes to order and her linen offcuts are saved and made into reusable face masks. Nozomi worked in the fashion industry in Japan for 10 years before moving to Wellington three years ago.

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C H AT T E R

New in town

Green dream Verdant Living home and design store has moved to Aro Street! Verdant makes it easy to be green by seeking out materials that carefully consider the environment and our health. “Organic and sustainable fabrics are our speciality, which we make up into homewares, curtains, blinds, cushions, lamps and furniture”.

F i ve S u r f ’s u p Temperatures are down, but the surf is up. Wellingtonian Gemma Cornish has launched her full-body wetsuits under her eco-surf label, Gemma Lee, just in time for winter.

Each wetsuit is made from limestone-based neoprene, which the company describes as the most environmentally friendly option available at present, and can be customfitted for sizes that may not be available off the shelf.

S eve n Dig ita l depar ture With international travel off the table for the time being, it’s unlikely family or friends living overseas will be able to attend a funeral in New Zealand. Aro Valley funeral company Broadbent & May have created a virtual option.

“Using technology we can facilitate an online funeral, incorporating many of the elements you’d expect at a physical funeral: eulogies, tributes, photos, videos, a tribute page and break-out rooms to catch up and share your memories,” says funeral director Fiona King.

Six M e l t i n yo u r m o u t h Baron Hasselhoff’s, a chocolate company in Berhampore, has won a gold medal at this year’s New Zealand chocolate awards. Their winning bar, Pirate Mary, is loaded with rosemary-infused salted caramel. Chocolate was classified as an essential service over the lockdown – the country had its priorities straight.

It's cool to kōrero Māku hei tahu te ahi. He wahia e toe ana?

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I’ll light the fire. Is there any firewood left?

N E W S

PUBLIC M E NAC E A unanimous vote by Wellington City Council’s Strategy and Policy Committee saw public share e-scooters return to the CBD. New guidelines around speed and parking have been implemented in response to safety concerns raised by Wellingtonians. For example a 15km/h speed limit for riders along the waterfront and Oriental Parade is enforced by “geo-fencing” technology.

However, as we went to print the GPS-based autobraking system was in the news for causing an accident leaving a 14-year-old with two broken elbows.

SP O RT SU P P O RT

ST R O N G H E A RT

C I T Y L IG H T S

Pre-Covid, Porirua had 70 groups regularly using its sports fields, outdoor courts, and outdoor recreation and open spaces. Now Porirua City Council is waiving fees and charges for Porirua sports clubs, and freezing them next year to help clubs bounce back from the pandemic. Mayor Anita Baker says, “The council wants to see our people out there playing and enjoying sport again, and this is one way of showing our support."

A $3.3-million project to strengthen Sacred Heart Cathedral in Thorndon can continue thanks to a $120,000 grant from Wellington City Council’s Built Heritage Incentive Fund. The Catholic parish ran into trouble when other funding for the project was withdrawn due to the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 119-year-old cathedral, one of only seven basilicas in New Zealand, was closed in 2018 after it was found not to meet seismic strength requirements.

Photographs by Wellington artist Martin Awa Clarke Langdon (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Whāwhākia, Ngāti Hikāiro, Kāi Tahu) are being displayed in the Courtenay Place Park Light Boxes to celebrate Matariki. Martin says his series To Turn Night into Day is a reflection of the urban Māori reality overlaid on traditional ways of being. “It considers what Matariki means and provides to a descendant of tūpuna gardeners, star navigators, innovators, and caregivers.”

稀攀戀爀愀渀漀

䜀愀愀爀搀

䔀甀瀀栀漀爀椀愀

倀儀

一椀渀攀琀攀攀渀⼀⼀㐀㘀

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䄀氀攀猀猀愀渀搀爀愀

N E W S

NUMBERS GAME Plastic tomato sauce bottles, small yoghurt containers, and other plastics numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 will no longer be accepted for recycling by Kāpiti Coast transfer stations and recycling collectors from 1 July. This is because countries that used to take our plastic aren’t any more and it’s ending up in landfill.

Plastics numbered 1, 2 and 5 will still be collected because they’re highly recyclable, but it seems like the perfect time to sign up for Plastic Free July.

T U R N E D E A RT H There are changes happening at the Basin Reserve. The entire pitch has been ripped up and re-sown. While the process looks dramatic, rest assured, cricket will return after the winter. It is part of the iconic cricket ground’s 2025 long term plan. The grandstands have also had seismic strengthening done as well as a fresh lick of paint.

Twigland WHALE, Gardeners WorldHAVE has a superb range of WHAT WE HERE? plants and gardening related products, including all Diesel engines on the Wairarapa Tohorā, a sculpture designed by artist your favourites and those not easily procured. railway line could be replaced by fully Come visit Kereama Taepa (Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa), Wellington’s favourite garden centre electric self-contained trains by the has been installed at Te Uruhi/Maclean and the very popular Café Thyme end of 2021. Funding of $5m from Park in Paraparaumu. The 10-metreOnly 15 minutes from downtown Wellington the New Zealand Transport Agency long concrete sculpture has lighting and 240that Middleton Glenside for an initial order of up to 25 new sound effects evoke theRoad, passage Open every day from 9am four-car sets has been secured by the of whales and travellers through the Teto 5pm

O N T R AC K

Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Daran Ponter, the chairperson, says the investment will “prepare the region for population and rail commuting growth.”

Au o te Rangi waters. Janet Holborow, Kāpiti Coast District Council Deputy Mayor, says the installation reflects the history and prehistory of Te Uruhi/Maclean Park and the local waters.

Twigland Gardeners World has a superb range of plants and gardening related products, including all your favourites and those not easily procured.

Come visit Wellington’s favourite garden centre and the very popular Café Thyme Only 15 minutes from downtown Wellington 240 Middleton Road, Glenside Open every day from 9am to 5pm

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P R O D U C T S

1.

2.

3.

4.

6.

5.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Pumpkin soup

1. Neem wood spoon, $13, Trade Aid 2. Castle jumper sweater, $125, Small Acorns 3. Lapuan Kankurit Varpu tea towel, $27, Newtown House 4. Falk Culinair 28cm jam pot, $330 (lid not included), Newtown House 5. Kinto glass sepia jug, $69, Wellington Apothecary 6. Baggu tomato bum bag, $85, Mooma 7. MM Linen birch throw, $199, McKenzie Willis 8. Arnold armchair, $2635, McKenzie Willis 9. Clinique Vitamin C 7-Day System, $60, Unichem Johnsonville Pharmacy 10. Jaggar solid cream heels, $275, I Love Paris

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DINE-IN AT YOURS

Find what you’re craving At Yours

www.visawoap.com/atyours

+400

Wellington restaurants, cafes, and food & beverage suppliers offering PICK UP AND DELIVERIES

S E C T I O N

H E A D E R

TA L E S

O F

T H E

C I T Y

Light minded

BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S P H OTO G R A P H Y BY V I C TO R I A B I R K I N S H AW

ANIMAL

ARTIST

B O OK

Ali

Tame Iti

Pakeha Maori by Trevor Bentley

RUGBY CLUB Rahui

PASSION Snowboarding & surfing

When lockdown threatened to bring him down, Hori put his anxiety into his art.

H

ohepa Thompson wears a few labels (teacher, dad, activist, surfer, artist and model) but he’s best known as “Hori”. He’s the brains behind HORI, an art, design, and clothing label created in 2012 to draw attention to big Māori and New Zealand issues. “The goal for the HORI brand is to open up conversations about difficult cultural and social issues which people feel are too taboo to talk about.” Hori describes himself as a “Māori artist slash model, and not the other way around.” He’s always had a thing for fashion and even has his own line of clothing, which he developed through Māori fashion board Miromoda. “It was the whole snowboard steeze that led me to the fashion game but after four years I kind of went back to art mahi... still love a good hat.”

Hori’s lockdown bubble was “my hot wife and three kids in our whare in Otaki – all trying as best as possible not to kill each other.” Plus Ali the horse. “We have a hoiho for our big girl Jett. She’s a really keen rider, and Ali has been with our whanau for a while.

I can’t ride to save myself but keen for our kids to all know how to ride and take care of a horse.”

Hori says he doesn’t do well being caged up, and lockdown really affected his mental health. “Usually I’m very free in my world, and our routine is really solid and stress free-ish. The lock down threw all of that out the window.” The anxiety and uncertainty “snuck up on me and bit me in the ass. Without even realising it I started to go to some dark places.” So Hori focused on a new body of work and now his

digital exhibition, Homai Haumaru or “Gimme Shelter”, can be viewed at thehori.co.nz. “As dark as this time was for me, I was able to put these anxious feelings in to my art work which helped me get through it.” Homai Haumaru looks at anxiety, depression, and the idea of shelter or sanctuary and its visual expression. “The exhibition is directed at our Māori males who represent the highest numbers of suicides in New Zealand. I hope this work can bring more awareness to this mental health issue and let our tane know that there is more mana in being able to talk about this issue.”

Hori is settled in Otaki – “Kāpiti island is that tohu [sign] for me that you’re nearly home. My whakapapa on my koro side to Ngāti Toa Rangatira so that motu [island] is pretty special.” But he has fond memories of the ten years he spent living in Central Wellington.

“Cuba Street will always be in my ngakau [heart].

Back in the day I used to live in the apartments next to San Fran and the jump to the balcony was always a favourite trick,” he laughs. “When I was back last year I paid to see my first gig there, Troy Kingi slayed it.”

If he wasn’t at the Bristol, he’d be at a flat in Lyall Bay, “brown in hand, listening to some Wu or Maiden – we were all a bunch of surf and skate rats. Most of us didn’t even live there.” These days he’ll be with his family, or in his studio, in Otaki. He’ll “shoot to the Wairarapa if the surf is good” and play sport on the weekends: “Rugby and league in Otaki is a real whānau affair which I love.”

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S E C T I O N

H E A D E R

H E

K Ō R E R O

P A K I

N Ō

T E

TA O N E

Kia Ngāwari N Ā F R A N C E S CA E M M S H E M EA W H A K A A H UA N Ā V I C TO R I A B I R K I N S H AW

KARAREHE

TOHUNGATOI

PUKAPUKA

Ko Ali

Tame Iti

Pakeha Maori nā Trevor Bentley

KARAPU HUTUPŌRO

MAHI MAKAU

Rahui

He eke hukapapa, he eke ngaru

I te taunga mai o te rāhui pōkēao, ka tuku a Hori i ana taumaha ki roto ki ana mahi toi.

H

e maha nga waitohu ka mau i a Hohepa Thompson (he kaiako, he pāpā, he kaireti ngaru, he ringa toi, he tangata tauira). Ko tōna ingoa kārangaranga ko “Hori”.

Otirā koia te kaituruki o HORI, he waitohu mō ngā mahi toi, hoahoa, kākahu hoki i hangaia i te tau 2012 hei whakatairanga ake i ngā kaupapa Māori i Aotearoa nei.

“Ko te whāinga a HORI he whakatuwhera i ngā rongo kōrero e pā ana ki ngā kaupapa ahurea, pāpori hoki e whakaaro ana ki ngā take wenerau. E ai ki a Hori, “he tohungatoi Māori au ka tahi, ka rua, he tangata tauira au.

Kāore e kotiti i tērā.” He ngākaunui ia ki te mahi hoahoa, ā, kei a ia tōna waitohu kākahu, nānā anō i waihanga mā te poari hoahoa o Miromoda. “Nā te mahi kaireti hukapapa i ārahi i a au ki te mahi hoahoa. Ka eke te whā tau, ka hoki au ki te mahi toi…pai tonu ki a au ngā pōtae tau.”

Ki tā Hōri ko tana mirumiru i te wā o te rāhui nui ko “taku wahine ataahua me ā māua tamariki tokotoru, i tō mātou whare i Ōtaki - he whakamātautau nui kia kore ai e taki rīriri tētahi ki tētahi.” Tāpiri atu ko Ali, tō rātou hoiho. “He hoiho tā mātou mo tā māua kōtiro mātaamua mō Jett. He kama tērā ki te eke hoiho, ā, kua roa a Ali e noho ana i roto i te whānau. Ahakoa taku koretake ki te eke hoiho, ka ngana tonu kia ako ngā tamariki ki te tiaki me te eke hoiho.” Kāore ia i rata ki te noho kōpā, ā, ka pā te mate hinengaro. “Kaore he herenga o tōku ao, ka mutu kua taunga mātou ki ā mātou mahi o ia rā. Nō te pānga mai o te rāhui pōkēao, haruru kau ana taku ao.” Ka rukupopo, ka anipā “ka ngaua taku tero. Ka mea kua whara i roto i te pōuriuri tītakataka ai. Ko tana huri koaro tērā ki te waihanga i te whakaaturanga matihiko a Homai Haumaru, a “Gimme Shelter” rānei, kei runga i te whārangi

ipurangi thehori.co.nz. “Ahakoa ngā pouritanga i taea e au te tuku i aku pouritanga ki roto i aku mahi toi.” Ko te kaupapa o Homai Haumaru he tiro ki ngā take kahupō me te tauira o te haumaru hei kaikanohi mā te tini rau tangata. “Ko tēnei whakaaturanga e anga nui ana ki ngā tāne Māori, inā ko rātou kei te tino kaha patua e te mate whakamomori. Ko te tūmanako mā tēnei kaupapa ka mārama ake te marea ki ngā take hauora hinengaro me te whakamahara i te tāne Māori he nui ake te mana kei roto i te tuku i ngā mamaetanga e pēhi kino nei i a rātou.”

Ko Ōtaki te tūrangawaewae o Hori - Ko Kapiti te tohu, e whakatata ana te wā kāinga. Ko ōku whakapapa ki te taha o tōku koroua ka pā ki a Ngāti Toa Rangatira, nā reira he motuhake tērā motu nō roto ake i a au.” Engari he rau ōna mahara mō te 10 tau i a ia e noho ana i te pokapū o Te Whanganui-a-Tara. “E kore e maunu te Tiriti o Cuba i tiriti o Cuba i taku whatumanawa. I mua i noho au ki ngā whare i te taha tonu o San Fran. Ko taku tino mahi haututu he tarapeke ki te parani,” ā, e kata ana ia. “I taku hokinga i tērā tau ka hoko tīkiti au ki te mātaki i taku pēne tuatahi i reira, ā, ko Troy Kingi te whetū maiangi i taua pō.” Mena kāore ia i Bristol, kei Huetepara ia, “he pia parauri kei te ringa, me te whakarongo ki a Wu, ki a Iron Maiden rānei - he porohianga kaieke ngaru katoa mātou ko aku hoa. Ko te nuinga o mātou kāore hoki koirā te kāinga.” I ēnei rā kei te noho piri ia ki tana whānau me tana whare mahi ki Ōtaki. Ka papatere atu ia ki Wairarapa mena e papaki ana nga ngaru nui, ā, hei ngā rangi whakatā ko ngā kēmu tākaro: “Aroha nui katoa ki a au te whutupōro me te rīki i Ōtaki, otira he ohu nui ērā kēmu mā te whānau katoa.”

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L O C K D O W N

Bubble breakdown

Vice TV than to writing the next Fleabag, many Wellingtonians did manage to accomplish more than remembering to brush their teeth every day.

For instance, Finn O’Brien (Cap #48), a man on a (quite literally) single-handed crusade to bring back finger-boarding, launched an Instagram channel @faketanfingers, to showcase his finger-flippin’ good micro-skating skills.

Jo Shierlaw launched her own independent fashion label, creating made-to-order cupcake dresses, technicoloured two-piece sets and various other sartorial delights, exclusively available at @jojothelabel.

Capital’s youngest contributor, nine-year-old Indi Lole Fitzsimmons, will soon be seeing her teddy, Lubert, on a postage stamp, after cleaning up in the New Zealand Bear Hunt’s stamp competition. Her stamp is now available to buy, with $3 from each sheet donated to the Red Cross.

My own partner/ live-in chef made ceviche every single night of lockdown, determined to perfect it after I suggested I could make it better than he could.

After more than 50 variations, the point has been long since proven. On the bright side, I haven’t had to make dinner for two months.

Allen Marshall completed painting his fivebedroom multi-storey house, constructed a boundary fence, painted a few cheeky art works, rearranged his Memory Lane shop in Thorndon, and still found time to kill street biking, until Makara Peak reopened.

I would just like to interject in my own defence that, while at no point did I paint any surface larger than my toenails, I did manage to concoct a vegan espresso martini using cinnamon, cardamom, cold brew, and whiskey. Which is almost cool.

After five weeks confined with a looming thesis deadline and grand plans, procrastinating at all costs, Jess Scott delves into the weird and wonderful ways Wellingtonians made it through lockdown.

G

oing into lockdown, I had ambitions to write a screenplay, a stunning first effort that would instantaneously propel me to the rank of Phoebe Waller-Bridge (if five inches shorter). Two pages, twenty-odd online shopping deliveries, and a flyblown sourdough starter later, I am grateful not to have given myself a DIY haircut that requires another five weeks in isolation.

Instead, I trawled through the New Zealand International Film Festival archives for the past 20 years and curated my ultimate watchlist, re-designed my house on Pinterest at least six times, and acquired no less than three faux-fur-trimmed jackets, ready to live out my Fran Fine fantasies as soon as I am released back into the wild.

Although my own lockdown lent itself more to languishing in bed, drinking coffee, and watching

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Weirdest bubbles First Prize A birthday party consisting of an eleven-year-old, her separated parents, her dad’s 23-year-old girlfriend, with a brief appearance from her mum’s Portuguese boyfriend. Aside from a heated debate about Jordan Peterson, an incident involving a melted spatula, and several Freudian slips, the entire affair was remarkably less terrible than one would imagine.

Runner Up A man and his two daughters, his girlfriend, the mother of one of his children, his own mother, and his cousin bunking down in the same house. To my knowledge, all parties are still on speaking terms.

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Wed, 10 Jun, 7.30pm Hamish McKeich, Conductor Beethoven Symphony No. 5 Wed, 24 Jun, 7.30pm Hamish McKeich, Conductor Deidre Irons, Piano Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor

Emperor NEW ZEALAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ENGAGE@HOME

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Watch it free and online at

C U L T U R E

THREE’S A C HA R M Pātaka has reopened with a bang, with three exhibitions running this month. Stevei Houkamau: He Kākano is a series of ceramic works that reference Tā moko and Tatau, customary vessels, matriarchal relationships and growth cycles. Multimedia group exhibition Wai: The Water Project (Cap #70) is now open after a covid-delay. As the Tylee Cottage Artist in Residence with Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery, glass artist Wendy Fairclough examined the food sources of Māori and Pākehā during the time of European settlement. The results can be seen in Wendy Fairclough: Common Ground.

RISING STARS

MIX TAPE

NAMING RIGHT

An exhibition of works by teachers and students of Otaki’s Te Wānanga o Raukawa opens at Mahara Gallery on 7 July.

Toi Whakarākai: Ngā Aho o Te Whenua is presented in the context of Matariki but also celebrates the close relationship the gallery and wānanga have enjoyed for twenty odd years. Gallery Director Janet Bayly says the artists’ mahi pushes the boundaries of traditional Māori arts, such as weaving, by “extending the art form, building on customary traditions and mediums, and bringing them into the 21st century.”

Collaboration with German musicians has been made easy. Virtual Partner Residencies, created by the Goethe Institut, are their response to the restriction on international travel created by the global pandemic. The aim of the programme is to maintain and reinforce international musical exchange and collaboration. For a project to be eligible to apply for the grant of approximately NZ $2,137, at least one Germany-based artist or ensemble must be involved.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 is known as the “Emperor”. Apparently the nickname came from one of Napoleon’s officers stationed in Vienna at the time of the concerto’s 1812 premiere. He said it was “an emperor of a concerto”, and the name stuck. Hamish McKeich, Principal Conductor in Residence, (Cap #66), will conduct the Emperor Concerto on 24 June, with Diedre Irons, ONZM, on piano. It’s part of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s Engage@Home series – streaming free at live.nzso.co.nz

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Home sick P H OTO G R A P H Y BY V I C TO R I A B I R K I N S H AW

Artist Jade Townsend has taken discarded materials from around the world to create an exhibition about returning home. She spoke to Francesca Emms.

O

n the road with a box full of rubbish, Jade Townsend was collecting what others had discarded or left behind – fishing rope from beaches in Thailand, postcards from Ibiza, Christmas crackers from Liverpool, cotton thread from India – in search of a more sustainable way of making work, both in terms of the environment and in relation to the realities of maintaining an artistic practice. Using “painting, technical collage, and embellishment,” Jade transformed the fishing and tourism debris into delicately woven and painted artworks. Her resulting exhibition, Homesick/ Sickhome, is showing at Page Galleries in Wellington.

The new mahi was made in multiple countries as the UK election and Brexit deadline approached, but before Covid-19. “My global exposure to these ruptures meant social and political issues were impossible to ignore and became absorbed into my emotions. The systems I engaged daily – such as airports, taxis, visa applications, border control, and local tabloids – became more abrasive and rigid by the day. At times, it felt like the gates of the world were closing on us, and with hindsight they were.”

Jade says Homesick/Sickhome expresses her relationship with navigation, the pull of the sea, and the complex emotions of returning home. It “reminds us of the importance of free movement” and it celebrates cultural exchange through the origins of the materials used in each piece. She acknowledges the power of context: “… the world now faces a completely different set of challenges than the one this show was originally made for. The show might now be read in new ways, perhaps as mementos of travel, beacons or lures to stay home, or signals to a vibrant future full with a multiplicity of destinations.”

Jade describes herself as having a dual heritage. “I am Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu) on my paternal side and Scouse (Liverpool, England) on my maternal side. I grew up living between Whanganui in Aotearoa and Huyton, Liverpool in England and have lived in many other cities within those countries too.” In 2012, after

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studying and working in London, where she made window displays for Hermès among others. Jade moved to Wellington because she was feeling homesick and to focus on her art. Here she lived with her best friend in Hataitai and then with husband Adam Ladley in his, now closed, Blue Barn Studios in Mt Cook. During five years in the capital Jade worked as a props master on the Hobbit films, exhibited in various spaces and collaborated with Wellington businesses – for example doing window displays for Harry’s in Seatoun.

Jade now lives on Auckland’s North Shore, but she says it was important to her that Homesick/Sickhome opened in Wellington. “I will always tautoko Wellington and acknowledge my relationships there. I feel like there is a place for me at the table, people who share in my desire to get their ideas out there – be that through art or otherwise.” In town for the exhibition opening she had a “dream list” of cafes, galleries and shops to visit. On installation day she and Adam headed straight to Nikau cafe for coffee, date scones, and pain au chocolat.

Nationwide restrictions on movement delayed the opening of her exhibition. Has the lockdown affected her in other ways? “Rāhui reinforced many of the beliefs I already had in relation to survival. Threats to our existence are nothing new especially for Māori. That was the perfect place to start. What beliefs, stories and practices can I learn about and apply to my own life? My son and husband watched me flourish with new knowledge during isolation. I encourage everyone to dig deep into their own histories and talk to your nannies more!”

Jade invites everyone to celebrate the Māori New Year, saying Matariki is the perfect opportunity to “bookend” a challenging time and look ahead. She plans to connect with her family and set goals “for our whanau” and for herself. She’ll present in an online education programme for Kei Te Pai Press: “it has been a great resource for me and I look forward to giving back”. She is also keen to see some of “the exceptional exhibitions scheduled, especially Stevei Houkamau at Pātaka”.

F E AT U R E

Stripped back & filled up P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

We met Katie Richardson back in 2013 when she talked to us about her cafe empire for our second ever issue of Capital. Seven years later she’s letting us look around home. Sarah Catherall visited Katie and her family in their Houghton Bay haven.

W

hen they bought their first home more than 20 years ago, Katie Richardson and Rico Lane acquired a tiny house − at just 65 square metres, the 1928 cottage came with 1.5 bedrooms and a kitchen not much bigger than a large cupboard. Located in Houghton Bay, it ticked all the boxes on the couple’s wish-list: it was on the South Coast, close to the water with sea views, and under their $200,000 budget. “It was a dark little cottage sitting in overgrown bush. The dunny got the best sun,’’ Rico laughs.

Over the years, as the couple’s life, business, and family have grown, they’ve changed and expanded their home. When they bought the house, the couple co-owned Deluxe Cafe, which they sold five years ago. About 14 years ago, they set up Maranui Cafe, and more recently, Queen Sally’s Diamond Deli. They own the Lyall Bay cafes jointly with Bronwyn Kelly.

In 2003, Rico − who has a background building film sets − sat down at the kitchen table with his pencil and square ruler and drew up plans for a house extension. Son Aloysius, now 19, was a baby, and Katie was pregnant with their second child so they needed more room.

Rico, helped by builder friends, built the first extension, pushing out part of the house. They lost the lawn, but he turned the former kitchen into a deck, and the former bathroom into the current kitchen. “The carpet went down the day I went into labour, and I came home with our new baby as the carpet layers were here,” Katie says.

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Adding on 70 square metres, they acquired another bedroom and what they now affectionately call “the noise room’’ − a den which houses the TV and computer. Filled with art and objects, including one of Rico’s yellow surfboards leaning against one wall, it’s one of Katie’s favourite rooms. She sometimes sleeps there in a roaring southerly: “It feels protected, like a bunker,” she says.

The kitchen and open plan living space is where the couple and their children Ava, 16, and Zebedee, 11, spend a lot of their time (Aloysius now lives and works in Raglan). Katie cooks vegan and vegetarian meals in what she describes as her perfectly-sized small kitchen. The kitchen’s interior style is eclectic, with many vintage and secondhand pieces dotted around, resembling the look of Queen Sally’s Diamond Deli. Katie’s cookbooks are stacked along open shelves, and a mix of vintage and new crockery sits on shelves nearby.

Katie has been collecting religious iconography for many years, and she has been given or bought the colourful crosses hanging on one kitchen wall. Rico was given the wooden figurine of Mary and baby Jesus, which was carved by his uncle who intended to become a priest until he met Rico’s aunty. “I love a vintage and eclectic look,’’ she says.

Rico lined the new walls with boards from the original cottage − a mix of red, white and natural timber boards line the kitchen and living room walls; they used to cover the original red porch, white kitchen, and wooden bathroom. “We mixed them up and laid them as they came off the pile,” Rico says. “I don’t like gib board. You end

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up spending more on the finishing materials and then you constantly have to repaint them. This way, it feels like an evolving house. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect, although Katie is fastidious about cleaning.’’

Their home is filled with treasures, many of which have been gifts or family pieces. Art works from 20 years at Deluxe Café hang on the living room wall near pieces they’ve bought or been given by artist friends over the years.

A washstand from Katie’s childhood bedroom sits in one corner of the dining area, which her mother bought in the 1960s for $10 and stripped back. Katie’s parents gave the couple their dining table as a wedding gift in 1998, along with the Turkish and assorted rugs scattered on the living room floor. Terracotta pots in the garden are also from her parents’ former Auckland home.

“Every time my parents downsize we acquire their old things,’’ Katie says.

Rico loves ferreting and finding things. Their garden, planted along a steep path, is sprinkled with sea glass, paua shells, and rusting “junk’’ he has picked up from his beach visits over the years. One of his best finds was three retro glass doors with sand-blasted images of fantails, which came from an Island Bay house that was being

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renovated. They are now a feature in the hallway and lead to the new bathrooom which was added in 2013, when Doug Weir, of Architectural Services, designed the second extension.

Sleeping in what they call “the south wing”, Ava has one of the best views in the house, from the expansive windows of her second-storey bedroom lined with ply.

The stairs to her room are covered in skateboard deck covers, with no two alike.

The couple’s bedroom and adjoining wet room have views of the Houghton Bay bush. “It has changed so much since we came here all those years ago, when it was essentially all gorse. It’s a really private house too, because we’re not too close to neighbours,’’ Katie says.

Their home is close to their work and favourite places, and they have very few reasons to go into the CBD. Three mornings a week, Katie drives a few kilometres to her commercial kitchen and bakery in Berhampore, where she cooks and prepares food for her cafes. Rico loves nothing more than donning his wetsuit and walking down to Houghton Bay for a surf.

“We live pretty much in a five-kilometre radius. I love the fact there’s no shop in the valley, and so the kids were never dairy kids,” he says.

The family love living near the sea, and, after 23 years, Katie still wouldn’t have it any other way.

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NEW ZEALAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ENGAGE@HOME

R E N O

An oldie but a goodie

Kate’s great place

Photography by Grant Sheehan

Photography by Jason Mann Photography

One of the finest examples of wooden Gothic Revival architecture in the world, Old St Paul’s was designed by architect the Reverend Frederick Thatcher, and is made entirely from native timbers. “The church is lovely from the outside, but absolutely stunning on the inside. The timber arches resemble an upturned galleon, and it features warm glowing wood, brass, and stained glass,” says Tamara Patten.

She’s the property manager of Old St Paul’s, and has a bit of history with the 154-year-old, Category I heritage building – she had her wedding there, and so did her grandparents in 1948. “It needs a lot of care and attention,” says Tamara. “I really love it, though, and the building has meant a lot to me since before I worked there.”

The church has been closed for over a year. The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake did significant damage to the building.

“The timber frame twisted and even widened in places.” A seismic strengthening project has included repairs to the timber frame and the foundations, and the bell tower has been strengthened. “We also had conservation work done on some of Old St Paul’s treasures, like our brass lectern, textiles, and illuminated panels. It will all be beautiful and gleaming for our visitors when we reopen.”

A small but mighty team has breathed new life into the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden. Victorian furniture and interiors expert Dr William Cottrell, designer Roger Joyce, and collections expert Abigail Timmins took on the major redevelopment last year, completing it in just five months.

With Mansfield’s life, loves, and literature in mind, every room was re-interpreted. Pieces of colonial furniture were sourced from all over the country by Dr Cottrell, sometimes from garages or under houses. He restored them to showcase the fashion influences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau.

Social distancing would have meant something different to Victorians. There was a strict hierarchy of rooms. Servants stayed in their quarters, the scullery (pictured), kitchen, and servery, and didn’t venture beyond except to work. Children were confined to their own quarters. Adults and their visitors enjoyed the more elaborate dining and drawing rooms, made grand by their furniture and fittings. The domestic character of the house means that current social distancing is easily achievable. “Because we are a small house museum, we’ve always had to manage our visitor numbers carefully to preserve both the fabric of the house and its collection,” says the director, Cherie Jacobson.

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EVERYTHING EVErYTHING YOU WANT IN A PALE ALE CALLED PALE ALE.

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F E AT U R E

Space invaders P H OTO G R A P H Y BY C H E T H O R P E

When Abbie Whangapirita planned to completely renovate an apartment in just seven days, she knew she needed to call in the family. She tells Francesca Emms about it.

A

rchitect Abbie Whangapirita is considered a “creative type”. If she’s not working in the education team at Stephenson and Turner you might find her creating hand-crafted embossed images or practicing her tap dancing.

Abbie wanted to try out a few ideas. Not wanting to take on anything too large, she managed to convince her parents and partner that they should invest in a 30-square-metre apartment in central Wellington.

Abbie’s dad Walton is a plasterer by trade “but can easily build a house”, her mum Frances is “the best painter in the world (never any drips)”, and her fiancé Che “is creative and loves getting ‘on the tools’.” So, they had the makings of a renovation dream team.

To make it even more exciting, Abbie decided they should do it all in seven days.

She began to plan four months before starting on site. “I had a floor plan, 3D drawings, colour scheme and sourced as many things as I could (tiles, paint, toilet etc.) so when we started, we would have everything we needed. A lot of preparation and thought needs to happen prior to the sledge hammer coming out.”

As these things do, the reno took a lot longer than expected. “We got about 60–70% of it done in seven days and then the remainder was done

by Che and me after work and on weekends.”

About seven weeks later their stylish new apartment was ready.

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Describe your style in five words: Simple, tonal, calming, subtle, and considered How has your education helped you with the project?

Studying architecture makes you think differently about design – aesthetically and functionally. However, being in practice, creating a design, documenting it, coordinating it, and sourcing materials is what really helped me with this project.

What was the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge was space. We had four people working in 30 square metres doing four different tasks.

We worked around this by working in teams. Mum and I would typically go out to source bits and pieces we needed (I basically lived at Bunnings for the week) while my Dad and Che would be doing demo work or building cabinetry.

We also had tasks for each day which we had listed on a whiteboard and would discuss these each morning – we could then highlight any clashes before we got started.

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What was the highlight?

There have been many moments – seeing the tiles go down in the bathroom, painting over the baby blue walls, adding the final styling touches to the space. But the biggest highlight would have to be working with my family and sharing a collective love for transformation. We worked on the apartment solidly for seven days in a row and we were all so excited (most) of the time. It was a lot of hard work but a lot of fun at the same time.

What are your top tips for making a small space work?

1.

2.

Think about what the space is going to be used for and who is going to inhabit it. This will allow you to make clear decisions on appliance sizes for example.

Consider what you need storage for. Everyone loves the idea of lots of storage but you don't want to lose valuable space to this. Consider what needs to be stored and design your cupboards and shelving to suit.

3.

Research. There are so many YouTube channels and Instagram accounts which have great ideas for small spaces. I drew inspiration from various designs, picking and choosing a few ideas that I thought would work well for our space.

What are you particularly proud of?

The trellis sliding doors / screens were a nightmare but look great and function so well. The doors are garden trellis screens, which we painted and hung on a track system. The finished screens divide the living room from the bedroom still allowing filtered light into the bedroom.

What are your tops tips when it comes to styling?

Make sure you purchase items that fit within your colour scheme. You should have a colour board which you can use to cross-check key purchases.

Style items that serve a function. A blanket, cushions,

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books, vases etc. all have a function in a living room and can add texture and layers to your space. In a kitchen, greenery, mugs, and chopping boards can look great displayed on an open shelf or on the benchtop.

Most of the renovation is a mix of high- and low-cost items. We purchased a new vanity and toilet for the bathroom but our mirror was $5 from the dump shop.

Was there anything that surprised you?

Absolutely! I love creating beautiful spaces. It doesn't take a lot to transform a space aesthetically and functionally, and it makes people's lives so much better. I can see so much potential in unloved buildings, and get such joy in transforming them. What I would do differently, though, is to be more realistic with the proposed timeframe. I am a forever optimist and thought that we could get a lot more done in seven days than was possible. Don't get me wrong, we achieved much in a short period of time, but I should have been more practical with the timeframe allocated.

Would you do it again?

How much interest we received from people following the renovation on Instagram (@_dae_design_). I would post most days and do stories to show people what we were doing. I also shared ideas and tips, which generated a lot of questions.

What did you splurge on, and what did you save on?

We splurged on the tiles for the bathroom and kitchen splashback. Since they are in such small areas, we could justify the extra dollars. They also really elevate the spaces and bring in the right tonal colour and texture. I love them.

We saved on kitchen cabinets by reusing what was there, putting on new handles and painting the doors.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned it’s…

Just because it is small, it doesn't mean it is easy!

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Revival house

BY SA R A H CAT H E R A L L P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

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assing along Tinakori Road, you would never know that a grand 1892 residence behind gates once housed Wellington’s second-oldest bowling club and the first to host a women-only bowling match.

The current owners, Tim and Fiona Arbuckle, have some history with the house. Fiona’s late father, Doug Parsons, was a member of the Khandallah Bowling Club years ago. He used to bowl on Thorndon’s graceful greens, heading upstairs to the clubhouse for a cup of tea or a drink afterwards. Fiona’s aunt also used to serve cups of tea there.

Tim, a Deloitte partner, and Fiona, who works for Zest Food Tours and the Royal Academy of Dance, returned from Melbourne with their three young children and bought the house in 2005. The previous owner had already converted it from a bowling clubhouse into a two-storey home. The bowling greens had also been sold off, and townhouses built on the land.

Moving a young family into a rundown, barely liveable home was ambitious, but Fiona points to the 1892 concrete steps in their back yard, leading up to a former green and says: “I fell in love with those.’’

However, there were many issues with the house. It was cold, dark, and poorly insulated, and the wooden floor boards were stained with beer. The family lived with all this for five years, before looking around for an architect. Tim laughs – some told them they were “crazy’’. Eventually, they engaged architect Mary Daish, a friend, who respected the home’s history, and also the couple’s desire for a modern, liveable family home. Says Fiona: “We wanted a home that was contemporary, modest, and not ostentatious.’’

The bowling club celebrated its centennial in 1992 and was sold in 2001 because of dwindling membership. It handed over all its memorabilia, including emblems, patches, and

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clubhouse booklets, to the couple, who now treasure it as part of their home’s history. They acknowledge its past in various ways throughout their home. The window overlooking the internal staircase boasts the Thorndon Bowling Club emblem, which they had sand-blasted into the glass; a nearby shelf displays the battered numerals 1892, which came from the original building; and the club’s sign stretches across the back of the garage, reminding the owners and visitors that the house had a former life. “We didn’t want to lose the heritage,’’ Tim says.

Working in association with Tse Wallace Architects, Mary totally revamped the top floor. Pulling down walls to the poky kitchen and study, she created a suspended contemporary interior space with kitchen, dining, and living spaces, cleverly connected but divided, with intimate nooks and huge sliding doors.

In what was once the drinking and socialising spot for Thorndon and visiting bowlers, Mary created a sunny area with window seats by the kitchen, while a formal sitting room runs off the other end of the elongated space. Where the bowlers formerly had their lockers, the wall has been transformed into custom-designed white oak shelving and storage units. The western facade of the house is filled

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with huge sliders and windows, offering expansive views up Tinakori Hill. Says Fiona, “We walk up there a lot. When the kids were young, it was their back yard and they’d build huts up there. The tuis come down and sit in our pohutakawa tree. It’s lovely.’’

Fiona likes feminine decor − she found the peacock wallpaper for one living room wall in Sydney; a pink mosaic kitchen splashback adds a pop of subdued colour. “Mary and I went shopping for tiles and I said, ‘That’s me’. At the time, our furnishings were more minimalist, so it was nice to have some colour,’’ she smiles.

Tim has a penchant for architecture and design, and son Hamish is studying architecture. Over the years, they have collected furniture and art that adds colour and texture to their home. A Max Patte light work hangs above the dining-room table, and they collect works by Golden Bay artist Frith Wilkinson.

While they were delighted with the top storey after shifting out for five months during the renovation, they then realised the ground-floor bedroom level also needed a refresh. And a double-brick internal wall on the southern side of the house was leaning out towards the neighbours. During phase two of the renovation in 2015, they took out the wall − completing the project just before the 2016 quake. “It would have fallen in if we hadn’t,’’ says Tim.

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T

As they were pulling down the internal brick wall, they discovered a urinal behind it, near the entrance to the couple’s revamped bedroom. Fiona remarks that her father, who passed away in 2009 before the first renovation was completed, “probably used the urinal’’.

The ground floor, which houses the bedrooms, is a calm space. Ben, 18, hangs out on his bean bag in his blue bedroom with 1970s retro lampshades. Hamish and Sophie’s rooms run alongside the hallway, and Fiona and Tim have a wing at the end. Selected by interior designer Libby Beattie, the curtains in their room feature blooming stone vases, a nod to the 1892 external stairs up to the former green which are clearly visible from the bedroom when the curtains are open. Pink features again in the Louis Poulsen lampshade hanging above their bed. The two bathrooms are calm, contemporary spaces.

Fiona describes the two renovations as “a labour of love.’’ It is very much a family home today, and the high stud and calm, expansive living space proved a blessing during lockdown, when the couple and their sons were all home. They played a lot of table tennis in the garage. Says Fiona: “We went on lots of walks and were able to go off and get our own space too. It’s a lovely, calm, serene home.”

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L O V E L O C A L S E C T I O N H E A D E R

Love local Eat on the Wild Side

Whether you’re looking for food, drinks, flowers, jewellery or whatever – wouldn’t you rather love local? Yeah, that’s what we thought. In the Love Local directory cool people doing cool stuff tell us what they’re up to.

Wildness is a social enterprise in Wellington, located in the Rimutaka Prison manufacturing fine dark organic chocolates, packed in eco-friendly packaging printed in Petone. We are Sustainable, Organic, Ethical, Enviro-Friendly and Socially conscious. Time to eat “Good” chocolate! www.wildness.co.nz

A Wild Night Out

Commonsense is now at 147 Tory Street

Nighttime becomes magical at ZEALANDIA. Be guided to the best spots in the ecosanctuary to search for wildlife, like kiwi, tuatara, takahē, and see the beauty of thousands of glowworms. Embrace your inner adventurer at ZEALANDIA. www.visitzealandia.com/ZEALANDIAbyNight

If you haven’t checked out Commonsense’s brand new Wellington City store, you’re in for a treat! You’ll find the same products, staff and service you love, plus a new area serving coffee, soup and a range of other treats. www.commonsenseorganics.co.nz

Bao's & Beers

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Traversing Asian cuisine before looking locally, Mr Go's serves the in-between. With a focus on ethical eating, their menu has become the best modern Asian hawker food in Wellington. Serving bao buns, dumplings, sharing 'bites' and NZ craft beers/wine. www.mrgos.co.nz

Based in Titahi Bay, Porirua, Tania Tupu (Ngati Porou) is a jewellery designer and maker of contemporary Maori and Pacific inspired adornment. Her work is now available, along with other NZ designed pieces, at the Te Papa Store. www.tepapastore.co.nz

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B R I E F S

C H A M PA G N E TA S T E Just in time for our House issue, Martha’s Furnishing Fabrics advise they have added Belgian linens to their collection. Considered the champagne of linens, Belgian linen is prized for its softness and durability. It is made from flax which can be farmed without irrigation or chemicals, and every part of the plant has value, reducing waste. These linens are produced in a centuries-old CO2-neutral mill.

WARM AND DRY

DROP OFF

BET TER BUILD

Eligible homes can get a 90% subsidy on heating (up to $3,000) and insulation (no limit) through the Government's Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. Sustainability Trust, a partner of the programme and advocate for healthy housing, has decided to top up the insulation subsidies by a further 10%.

If you meet the criteria they can supply and install ceiling insulation, underfloor insulation, and ground vapour barrier free of charge.

New property listings in Wellington have dropped by 24.3% compared with this time last year. According to a report by realestate.co.nz, nationwide property listings are down, with the capital seeing one of the biggest drops, second only to Gisborne’s 43.5% fall. But Covid-19 does not appear to have dampened asking prices, with the national average asking price up by 10.3%.

New exemptions to the Building Act are expected to save homeowners $18 million in consenting costs each year. Single-storey detached buildings up to 30 square metres – such as sleep-outs, sheds and greenhouses – will now not require a council-approved building consent. This means councils can focus on higher-risk building work, which will boost the building and construction sector in the COVID-19 recovery, says Jenny Salesa, Minister for Building and Construction.

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O P I N I O N

Open book The debate over Wellington Public Library, whether to save it or scrap it, continues. Architect Ken Davis, who worked on the Wellington Civic Centre and Public Library project with Athfield, says practical solutions are being ignored.

He lays out his expert opinion.

I

began my first job out of Architecture School, at Athfield Architects, one month after the 1987 sharemarket crash. My boss was Ian Athfield, the enfant terrible of New Zealand architecture. I worked with “Ath” and a group of 30 talented architects and designers in offices located in his famous house, an extraordinary cluster of buildings clinging to a Khandallah hillside, overlooking Wellington Harbour.

By the time I joined the office in 1987, Ath had been embraced by the new post-Rogernomics corporate world of neo-liberalism. Post-Modernism, an art theory and design style, was its architectural emblem and it was all the rage.

Ath, an architectural chameleon, embraced PostModernism more than others, as an opportunity to enrich and explore architectural form. The iconic metal nikau palm trees that adorn the library building, now a symbol of Wellington, are a legacy of Ath’s journey with fellow architect Rewi Thompson to LA to collaborate with international “Starchitect” Frank Gehry, on an entry short-listed for the Museum of New Zealand competition in 1989.

This is the context in which the Wellington Public Library and Civic Centre were created.

It was Ath’s first commission for a major public building. While it is a fine example of Post-Modern architecture, with its classical references, idiosyncratic whimsy and visual games, the library building does not represent the private and corporate interests at the centre of this movement. Ath subverted the PostModern programme and created a public building that is civic, open, generous and accessible, and offered innovations such as the first bilingual signage and first parenting room in a public building in New Zealand, and first café in a public library in Australasia. Upon its opening in 1991, it was universally applauded and became loved as a building for the people. It epitomised Ath’s essential humanity. In its first year it welcomed over a million people.

His design approach focused not only on the buildings as objects, but how those objects were

arranged and the quality of the space between them.

The design of the library building, its scale and form, and its positioning on the site are crucial to the original success of the Civic Square, a space designed for public gathering, celebration, and protest.

In March last year, the library building was suddenly closed because it was deemed earthquake prone, even though it had survived the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake without any damage. Almost immediately came calls from politicians, including the former Mayor, to tear it down and start again with something flash and new.

There was immediate public resistance to the mayor’s tone-deaf utterances. This is a building of not only considerable architectural and urban design significance, but a building that attracted over 3,000 people per day (1.1 million/year) or approx 32 million since it was opened to the public at the end of 1991. It has become popularly known as “Wellington’s Living Room.”

In July last year, the New Zealand Institute of Architects undertook a “Save it or Scrap it” campaign advocating the retention of the building. It proved effective until a new structural report on the building, released last month, triggered calls, again from our local body politicians including the current mayor, for the library’s demolition and replacement with a new building “fit for the 21st Century”.

The preservation campaign included input from local structural engineer Adam Thornton, famous for moving the Museum Hotel to make room for Te Papa. Adam undertook detailed analysis of the library building’s structure and proposed a pragmatic, cost-effective set of options for seismically upgrading the building. They ranged from a simple, low cost, quick fix to address the potential collapse of precast concrete floor slabs (bolting steel angles to the sides of the beams under the floor slabs, to seat them more securely) for approximately $10 million, taking 6–10 months, to full base isolation, which would cost about $30 million and take 3–4 years.

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The quick fix, it was reiterated at the council’s public meeting of the 27 May, would lift the building well above the 34% of NBS mandated for Wellington, and make the building safe for an early public re-opening, much sooner and at lower cost than other more extensive and expensive options.

In a July 2019 public NZIA talk, Adam Thornton proposed starting with the quick, cost-effective seismic upgrade to the floor slabs, to get the Library occupied again; “then take a breath, pay for the Town Hall, pay for the St James and come back in 10 years time and do the rest of the building” (meaning base isolation and upgrading of the library facility.)

Good architecture is robust, flexible, resilient and enduring and the Wellington public library building is all of those things. In the 1990’s Civic Centre development, our 1930s library building was converted to a contemporary public art gallery and our 19th century Old Town Hall was upgraded to a state of the art concert hall, and is now being strengthened for use as Victoria University music school and home to the NZSO. So too the Library can be tweaked, modified and modernised to serve the needs of a 21st Century library, as good as anything that Christchurch’s Turanga Library might offer.

In 1989 in the midst of a recession, the Wellington City Council committed to the construction of the Wellington Civic Centre project. The largest construction project in the country at the time, it stimulated and sustained the Wellington construction economy, when needed. A local council providing fiscal stimulus when the light-handed governments of the period chose austerity with catastrophic effects on the national economy.

From the economic carnage of the 1987 crash and subsequent recession, a new, dynamic, smart, vibrant Wellington City emerged – still the best and only real city in New Zealand, and I say that as an Auckland resident.

Wellington councillors need to be reminded of the environmental cost of destroying the building; its demolition would be inconsistent with the council’s own sustainability policy “Te Atakura–First to Zero”, its blueprint for "a zero-carbon capital city". Angela Foster (NZIA’s Wellington Branch Chair) set out this cost in an excellent opinion piece, “Wellington library building more than just bricks and mortar” in the Dominion Post last year: it takes decades for new buildings to compensate for the climate-change impacts of their construction.

If the government and WCC are looking for “shovelready” projects, the best, most cost effective and quickest to get under way are sustainable projects to increase the earthquake, climate-change and Covid-19 resilience of our existing building stock, especially in Wellington.

The Public Library and Civic Centre falls squarely into this category. Getting the building open to the public quickly, and the human and commercial activity that

will be generated, will also help the commercial and emotional recovery of the CBD from the effects of the Covid-19 shutdown.

The latest proposals for the library building involve costs ranging from a $36-million base case seismic upgrade, to $200-million for a high resilience, fully refurbished option for the existing library building or approximately $160 million for a new building of similar size. But Adam Thornton’s intelligent proposal for a $10-million quick fix seismic upgrade of the Library Building is a compelling option that a council in search of cost-effective “shovel-ready” projects must seriously consider.

Also worth taking into account is the cost to the council, cash-strapped from Covid-19, of their current commercial leases for three temporary CBD Library pop-ups and a new Johnsonville collection and distribution centre, while the library stands empty.

Given the building’s obvious popularity, council should not underestimate public support for saving the Library building. The public of Wellington is not stupid, and any attempt to destroy the building, which has great public meaning and value, and forms a key part of an important heritage precinct, could result in prolonged delay from protest and legal challenge.

Ath, both feted and hated, was one of New Zealand’s most significant/important architects, possibly our most significant/important, history will tell. His extraordinary body of work – houses, apartment buildings, schools, office buildings, public buildings and civic spaces – is unrivalled in New Zealand. He is the Antoni Gaudí of the South Pacific. To destroy the Wellington Public Library, the “Living Room of our City” would be a gross act of cultural vandalism, the citizens of Wellington ought not to let this happen.

Ken is the Director of Ken Davis Architects, a boutique, award-winning architecture and urban design practice that operates in Auckland and Wellington. Ken has taught at Victoria University of Wellington and Wellington Institute of Technology. He is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) and has served on a number of review panels and development subcommittees including the Wellington Civic Centre Design Review, the Wellington Waterfront Development, and the Cuba Precinct Urban Design Study.

Although Ken is currently living in Auckland, he is a Wellington City Council rate payer.

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Giant dragonfly Name: New Zealand bush giant dragonfly

Look/listen: You’re likely to spot them about the edges of bushes or scrub (keep an eye on them if you do − when they stop to rest they can do so for long periods, giving you a great opportunity to observe them).

The nymphs of the kapokapowai are less often seen. They tunnel into the earth of a stream bank and occupy a chamber half-filled with water for five or six years, emerging at night to catch prey near the entrance to their burrows (they’ve also been known to nip the toes of unwary swimmers!)

Māori name: Kapokapowai Status: Endemic.

Scientific name: Uropetala carovei Description: What’s that giant yellow and black hovering creature with a wingspan as wide as your hand, looking like a menacing drone-spy from a futuristic horror flick? It’s Aotearoa’s biggest dragonfly, kapokapowai, or the New Zealand bush giant dragonfly, the bigger of our two endemic giant dragonfly species.

With a body up to 8.6cm in length and a wingspan up to 13cm, these giants are slow, noisy fliers. They are so big they can be spotted from up to 100 metres away.

Dragonflies are incredible fliers – our best aircraft could never match them for agility. They’re also awesome hunters, with a 95% success rate when it comes to catching prey, and kapokapowai have been recorded eating 20 flies in a single minute.

Tell me a story: The name kapokapowai means “water snatcher”, referring to the way they shoot out their long extendable “jaw” (attached to a hinged structure that folds under the head) to snatch prey.

Other names for dragonflies include “Devil's Darning Needles” and, in some Latin American countries, “Caballitos del Diablo”or “Devil's Little Horses” − suggesting that humans have always viewed them warily (keep in mind their ancestral cousins had wingspans of around 75cm).

The thing is, dragonflies are harmless to humans and a good barometer of the health of the neighbouring ecosystem. A stream with dragonflies is a healthy one.

Habitat: As their name suggests, kapokapowai live in damp areas of native forests. They’re found in the North Island, Marlborough, Nelson, the West Coast and Southland (not usually on the east coast) and are most often seen at the edge of bush or scrub. Look for them in summer.

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S AY CHEESE Drunken Nanny Cheese started out with a small herd of only 25 goats. The family-run operation now runs close to 200 does, and this year they took out the supreme award for the best boutique cheese in New Zealand. Their winning cheese was Black Tie, a pyramid-shaped fresh goat cheese, coated in black ash from burnt grape vines. The Martinborough cheese markers also snagged the top award for a farmhouse cheese, defined as a cheese produced at the same farm where the milk is harvested.

A CUT ABOVE

COFFEE AND COLOUR

MOLTO BENE, GRAZIE

Mojo coffee packaging is getting a makeover and it’s coming with an environmentally friendly twist. Their new packing is biodegradable and can be composted at home along with your scraps and eggshells. A lot of compostable packing is commercially compostable only, meaning it won’t work in the standard black compost bin Kiwis love to keep in their gardens. Expect to see the new packaging in stores by the end of June.

The #100dayproject asks people to explore their creativity for 100 days.

Illustrator Kate McGuinness jumped at the challenge and combined her love for the windy city and a keen eye for detail to capture the people and places of Wellington.

Kate focused on cafes and restaurants which doubled as a way to acknowledge local businesses under lockdown. View her charming illustrations at Capital online.

Italian cuisine is more popular in Wellington than anywhere else in New Zealand, according to Chef’s Pencil. A report from the online foodie hub says that over a 12-month period, online searches for Italian food and cuisine mostly came from the capital. Wellington’s Island Bay was once a frequent destination for new arrivals from Italy and still boasts a strong Italian community.

Nationwide, Thai food was by far the most searched, with Indian and Chinese second and third respectively.

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E D I B L E S

T H E OAT S T H AT R O C K E D Plant based milks are in demand around New Zealand, whether it’s for animal welfare, health, or environmental reasons. Leading the charge is oat milk. One Wellington cafe owner says they use about 50 litres of alternative milks a week, half of which is oat milk. Dunedin company Otis oat milk recently announced plans to build a factory capable of producing 25 million litres of oat milk a year to meet demand. Plant-based milks are expected to be a global market worth $56 billion by 2024.

FRUITS OF YOUR LABOUR

IT'S A MUST

SIMPLY THE BEST

With a growing interest in knowing where our food comes from and a little extra time on our hands, garden centres saw a substantial increase in new customers leading up to lockdown. Twigland in Glenside have a month by month guide to planting and maintaining your garden on their website – the perfect companion if your green fingers are still learning their way around the soil.

Sandwich or burger? Philosophers have long pondered such metaphysical questions. Burgerfuel and Al Brown & Co have joined forces to craft the ultimate love child of a sandwich and a burger − Mustang Deli. The creation is a double meat hit which combines the classic cheeseburger patty with the corned beef of the legendary Reuben sandwich. Kimchi, pickles, cheese and Habanero mustard top the amalgamation off.

Wellington on a Plate has been moved from August to October. The festival has added a “Greatest Hits” category, involving a campaign that asks Wellington cafes and restaurants to bring back a crowd favourite menu item that is no longer available. Old favourites will be listed on the WOAP website from 1 July.

S H E A R E R S '

TA B L E

Haku (Kingfish), ginger and chilli dumplings

BY N I K K I & J O R DA N S H E A R E R

M

atariki, the Māori New Year, is traditionally a time to remember those who have died in the past year.

But it is also a happy event – crops have been harvested and seafood and birds have been collected. With plenty of food in the storehouses, Matariki is a time for singing, dancing, and feasting. These dumplings celebrate kaimoana; with haku sourced lovingly from our Wellington

waters, a little chilli for fireworks, ginger as twinkling stars, and folded with mānawanawa (patience) and aroha (love) to mark the occasion. You can find some good tutorials for folding dumplings on YouTube. These dumplings can also be frozen unsteamed for use later. Layer them between sheets of baking paper in a container and place in the freezer.

Makes approximately 50 dumplings

Kua mau tāu ika, he haku, nō te moana uri.

Your fish has been caught, a kingfish from the deep green ocean.

Dumpling 2 tsp sesame oil 1 Tbsp rice bran oil 1 cup finely sliced red cabbage 1 cup finely sliced bok choy 3 cm ginger, finely diced 1–2 red chillies, finely diced (remove seeds if you don’t want too many fireworks) 2 Tbsp soy sauce 400g raw kingfish, diced into small cubes 1 bunch coriander leaves, chopped 2 spring onions, finely sliced 2 tsp fish sauce 50 dumpling wrappers (we used chiao tzu skins) 1 Tbsp rice bran or coconut oil Boiling water for steaming

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In a pan with a lid, heat oils and add finely sliced cabbage, bok choy and ginger. Cover and steam for 4 minutes on a medium heat.

Add chilli and soy sauce and cook for another 2–3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once the mixture has cooled, mix in a large bowl with diced fish, coriander, fish sauce, and spring onions.

Place 2 tsp of the dumpling mixture in a dumpling wrapper. Wet the edge with a little water and fold edges together forming small pleats to seal the dumpling. Repeat with remaining dumpling wrappers and filling.

Heat a large pan with a lid over a medium heat; place a batch of dumplings in and fry for 1–2 minutes until one side is golden.

Add ½ cup boiling water to pan, cover and steam for a further 2 minutes.

Repeat with remaining dumplings and serve with chilli dipping sauce.

Alternatively: steam batches of approximately 8–10 dumplings covered for 5 minutes in a steamer basket.

Chilli dipping sauce 2 tsp Chinese chilli oil 2 tsp kecap manis 2 tsp chinkiang vinegar or rice wine vinegar 6 Tbsp sauce soy

1.

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Mix all ingredients together and serve with dumplings.

S E C T I O N

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WA N T M O R E G R E AT R E A D S ?

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with a selection of stories F R O M T H E PA S T S E V E N T Y I S S U E S .

capitalmag.co.nz 65

B Y

T H E

B O O K

V I RU S B O OK GOES VIRAL Award-winning illustrator Phoebe Morris (Cap #44) has created Super Felix, a digital storybook designed to help children make sense of COVID-19 and talk about it with their parents. Since its April release, libraries around the world have requested it and Super Felix has since been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Latin American Spanish. Afrikaans and Te reo Māori are coming soon. “Well that escalated quickly,” says Phoebe. Download Super Felix at phoebemorriscreative.com/superfelix

PUKAPUKA PAI

IMAGES OF PROTEST

BUY THE B O OK

To celebrate Matariki we have five copies of the Collins Māori Phrasebook and Dictionary to give away. First published in 1990, it’s one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s best and most trusted guides to Te reo Māori.

Author Patricia Tauroa has revised and updated her text for this new edition, taking into account tribal nuance, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Head to capitalmag.co.nz for competition details.

Matariki Williams (pictured, Cap #52), Stephanie Gibson, and Puawai Cairns have won the Illustrated Non-Fiction Award in this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance.

Judges Odessa Owens, Lana Lopesi, and Hamish Coney say the book stood above the other finalists for its excellence in writing, illustration, and design, and also for tackling a vast and significant topic. “The images allow us to be witness to – and challenge us to learn from – our shared past of resistance, dissent and activism.”

Wellingtonians have rallied to support Kiwi publishers and bookshops after sales were obliterated in April.

“Locals are really pulling out the stops,” says Tilly Lloyd from Unity Books. “We’ve noticed a much higher percentage of under-30s, MPs, and in-limbo-travellers buying up large, but we’re missing some aged literati and bookaholics from the CBD offices.” She says the current best-seller is Ockham Award-winning novel Aue by Becky Manawatu (pictured).

66

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Re-verse I N T R O D U C E D BY O S C A R U P P E R T O N

The poet: I first came across Claudia Jardine’s writing at the launch of Starling Issue 9, in Newtown’s Book Hound bookshop. I was jammed up against a bookshelf full of children’s classics and I couldn’t see the poets, but that turned out to be a perfect way to experience Claudia’s poetry. It was simple, clear, strange, and full of images that immediately projected themselves over the spines of the books in front of me.

Claudia is a Pākehā/Maltese poet and musician who was born in Te Tihi-o-Maru and lives in Te Whanganuia-Tara. You can find her poems in Sport 47and her debut indie-folk EP North is available on bandcamp and other streaming services. Claudia has a collection of poems coming out in August in Auckland University Press’s New Poets 7 with Rhys Feeney and Ria Masae.

I S I T H A R D TO F O L L O W YO U R H E A R T W H E N YO U H AV E T H R E E ? (on the story of the giant octopus from Aelian’s De Natura Animalium) is it hard to follow your heart when you have three? one for circulation two for breathing i am the stone jar of pickled fish you are the giant octopus

Why I like the poem: Because it’s a love poem about an octopus and a jar of pickled fish. Because an octopus is already a very strange animal, and this poem makes it stranger. Because an octopus crawling up a sewer is a great thing to imagine, especially when the image is tinged with love. Because we should all aspire to be as patient as the jar, and as democratic as the octopus.

Because, as Claudia puts it, Aelian’s original story of the octopus “is so fascinating and entertaining, but alas in the original Latin text it ends badly for the octopus, and I wanted to celebrate the good part before humans had to get involved and ruin it.” Because I can’t wait for the movie adaptation.

i wait in the dark for you you crawl up the sewer for me we cast our votes two are for breathing

By Claudia Jardine

Where to read this poem: On a ship or at least in sight of a sea or sewer.

Oscar Upperton was born in Christchurch in 1991, grew up in Whangārei and Palmerston North, and now lives in Wellington. In 2019 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary. His work has featured in Sport, Metro, and Best New Zealand Poems.

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Walking backwards P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

Shannon Te Ao mines his mistakes and ambitions to create his multi-disciplinary art installations. He spoke with Hanahiva Rose about language, learning and repetition.

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nnouncing film and performance artist Shannon Te Ao (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) as the 2016 winner of the prestigious Walters Prize, Doryun Chong said, “I would like to thank Shannon for reminding me that a powerful work of art is sometimes created by an elegant formula of a simple gesture and repetitions”.

The idea of repetition as a process that slowly, inevitably, produces a unique product recurs in Shannon’s practice.

It’s present in Two shoots that stretch far out (2013–14), the Walters-winning work that shows Shannon repeatedly reciting an English translation of a waiata to a changing cast of farm animals; and it’s implicit in the title of his new sound and moving image installation work Ka mua, ka muri (2020). Drawn from a whakatauki or proverb, it means to walk backwards into the future: that we must know what has come before in order to face what is to come. The work features original waiata, and references the road movie genre.

Shannon was born in Australia to an Australian mother and Māori father. He moved to Auckland in his twenties to study at Elam School of Fine Arts in the early 2000s. “Kate, my partner at the time and now my wife, was brave enough to kick me out of the car on my first day. I didn’t want to go.”

PAGE 72: Still from my life as a tunnel, 2018 Cinematography: Iain Frengley Post-production: Michael Bridgman Sound: James Tapsell-Kururangi Courtesy of Mossman Gallery, Wellington.

PAGE 73: Still from With the sun aglow, I have my pensive moods, 2017 Cinematography: Iain Frengley Courtesy of Mossman Gallery, Wellington.

PAGE 74: Ka mua, ka muri, 2020 Cinematography: Adam Luxton Installation view: Oakville Galleries Photo: Laura Findlay Image courtesy of Oakville Galleries.

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Since then, Shannon’s done a teaching degree and a Master of Fine Arts. He’s now a Senior Lecturer at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University Wellington. Does he enjoy teaching? “Yeah, I love it. When you can see someone actually learn more about what they’re doing, or their own interests, in front of you, in real time, that’s exciting to be around.”

We’re speaking over video call, Shannon at his home on the hills in Wellington, me in New Plymouth. It’s been a busy few months: exhibitions rescheduled and postponed; teaching moved online; requests from galleries for digital content; homeschooling the kids. The house feels small, he tells me.

I’m reminded of his 2011 video-performance Untitled (McCahon House Studies), shot in Colin McCahon’s tiny former family home in Titirangi, Auckland. Te Ao snuck into the house, wearing Kate’s dressing gown and a wig, to perform a series of erratic tasks that confronted the competing psychological demands of creativity and family.

Where does his work begin? “I’ve often drawn from existing material, but now more regularly the material is coming from my own mistakes or my own ambitions to dig a little more into previous works.”

This is the case with Ka mua, ka muri, in which its seed in Shannon’s own writing is made to explore further imagery and ideas raised in the 2019 work

what was or could be today (again).

“Then I gave that material up to Kurt Komene (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki Whānui) to respond to. And his responses became the script. I guess I’m feeling enough freedom, as an artist, to generate things – not necessarily from scratch – but in response to what I’m doing.” Komene collaborated on the two original songs which became both the score and the script for the larger work.

I’m interested in this idea of building a body of artworks that speak to one another, that draw on and build on one another; share a world but at the same time exist in and of themselves. It implies an ability, and a desire, to communicate. Knowing of Shannon’s interest in language, which is apparent in both his films and his text-based prints and installations, I ask about his relationship with te reo Māori.

“The use of te reo in my work doesn’t necessarily mirror my own reo journey. I grew up without any reo and with very little around me. There’s a bunch of factors that play into that, but the implication is that it’s another piece of knowledge that we need to retrieve. I acknowledge that happening alongside of my work, and as I’ve grown in confidence as a learner, speaker and someone who engages in te ao Māori I’m integrating it in different ways.”

Ka mua, ka muri, which was scheduled to open at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Canada in April

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this year, has been delayed by the museum’s temporary closure in response to COVID-19. When it does open, the film will be accompanied by the wall painting The pathway of my life is laid out, and traversed by the essential energy of many, many people (2020). The painting includes three lines of text, each in response to the others, in English, te reo Māori, and Anishinaabemowin – the language of the First Nations nearest to Oakville Galleries in Toronto, where the work was first shown.

“It presents three different versions of a single piece of source material: the lyrical content of one of the songs that features in the film. They’re not translations, really. They’ve been responded to so that the imagery can move on, rather than the language.”

It’s supposed to be fun, he tells me. Is fun important to him, in making his work? “It is important.

People are sometimes surprised when they meet me

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after seeing my work, which can be pretty sombre.

To me, having fun and being playful are about opening up new space, and that’s what’s important to me as an artist: getting somewhere I hadn’t thought it might get to.”

After we speak, Shannon sends me files of some of his recent work. I’m struck by what was or could be today (again), which juxtaposes closeup images of a landscape painting by Shannon’s grandmother with footage of endurance athlete Ngarama Milner-Olsen swimming in Lake Taupō – near to where the painting was made. Ngarama is a former professional netballer who taught herself to swim as an adult and now participates in international triathlons. Watching her arms stroke broad crescents in and out of waves I am reminded of Shannon’s words, and wonder at our ability to arrive at places we don’t know we’ll get to.

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W E L L Y

A N G E L

What would Deirdre do?

PITCHED BAT T L E S My father and I have very different political ideologies.

He quite often upsets me with his points of view on certain things. Whenever I try and discuss something he has raised from a different point of view he will never budge from his position of “being right”. A lot of the time his points of view marginalise certain groups and are sometimes racist. I obviously love my father, but hate some of his “opinions”. I’ve tried talking to him in the past about this with very little luck − help!

Anxious, Lower Hutt

A DV I C E F RO M D E I R D R E TA R R A N T

T O O FA R AWAY I’m pregnant and we live far away from my family. I’m worried about having no support and them missing out on watching their grandchild grow up. Our budget is tight, so travelling regularly will be tricky. Any suggestions?

Expecting, Ngaio

You certainly are not alone in this. It is kind of mandatory for political inter-generation differences to exist. Try to just agree to differ and avoid argument. It is a no-win situation and best not to go there − fathers have a deepseated moral obligation to themselves to always be right!

Be friends, debate if you can, but avoid taking sides and you can both vote as you see fit! Not easy but it can be done. You must be true to your own views and beliefs.

Many many families deal with this and it is hard but often a reality. Lots of FaceTime /Zoom and photos. Invite them to come visit and be very keen − grandparents will want to share. Maybe make a commitment to travel to each other in alternate years. You don’t indicate whether this is half-way round the world or elsewhere in New Zealand. Some families live in the same street and don’t connect or support much. This is a special time so talk about it and see if you can find solutions. A baby is a very long-term little person and things might change; but right now take care and give him or her the best start to life in this mad world that you can.

PAY PA L S I lent my neighbour a few bags of flour and sugar over lockdown, expecting they’d pay me back when they could get to the supermarket next. But there’s no sign of repayment. Should I just come out and ask them?

Temper rising, Martinborough

N O SY N E IG H B OU R During Level 4 I couldn’t help but take more notice of what my neighbours get up to. Now that I know they’re growing marijuana, should I tell someone? It doesn’t bother me, but I’m aware this activity is currently illegal. Can I just pretend I don’t know?

Clearing the air, Kapiti (address supplied)

Well it sounds as though the expectation was not explicit? Lockdown was a once in a lifetime event – maybe they thought you were being a generous neighbour?

Maybe you could let it go and feel good about doing something for someone else in the spirit of Covid? If you can’t bring yourself to that, then do you have the receipt for what you bought, so it can be copied and give them an invoice? I think I would let bygones be bygones – there are more important things.

Well, this is a nosy neighbour moment indeed. If it does not bother you maybe let it be; but clearly it does bother you, and yes, it is illegal now. This is your dilemma and you need to make your decision.

If you’ve got a burning question for Deirdre, email angel@capitalmag.co.nz with Capital Angel in the subject line.

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8 Queen Street, Upper Hutt 04 569 1969 thecurtainstore.co.nz

radioactive

WĀ H I N E

The new normal

BY M E LO DY T H O M AS

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riting about current events for a monthly magazine can be tricky – especially with something like coronavirus, where the situation is constantly evolving. But no matter what alert level we’re in when this finds you, how many new cases, or at what unfathomable number sits the global death toll, one thing is guaranteed: it won’t be over.

Even if the virus is eliminated from Aotearoa or a vaccine discovered and shared around the world, its effects will continue to unfold long into our future.

From where we sit now it’s hard to know what those effects will be, but students in decades to come will study them in history books, committing dates and numbers to memory for their exams, and they will feel the same horror and disbelief we all felt reading about great historical misfortunes. They’ll also feel the same detachment. For them, the coronavirus pandemic will be a thing that happened to other people.

Living it is something else − the stress low-level and unrelenting, like a dull toothache, rather than panicked and urgent as we might have expected. For the most part, we’ve adjusted to the current normal. We keep a distance from others, wash and sanitise our hands, perhaps wear masks, keep to our bubbles as if these are things we've always done.

We feel lucky to live in a country that benefits from geographical isolation, where our government acted quickly and where the impact is low enough that some people feel emboldened to call its response an “overreaction.”

And yet, despite the relative calm, many of us are visited by mysterious new ailments. “Why can’t I sleep?” we ask. “Where’s my focus?” “Why am I aching?” “I’m so impatient!” We run through the list of potential causes, somehow neglecting to consider the effect of living through a global pandemic. Studies of how humans cope with uncertainty have shown that not knowing what's about to happen causes us more stress than knowing for certain

something bad will happen − and this is where we find ourselves now: floating in an uncertain in-between. We have left “before” coronavirus, but not yet reached “after.”

There are many for whom lockdown was incredibly hard: those who lost jobs or businesses, single parents, people working from home with kids in tow, the socially isolated, anyone unable to attend a tāngi or who had to cancel a wedding, and of course the families and friends of the people we lost to the virus itself. But of those whose livelihoods and health were not threatened, a good many found beauty in the new, slower pace of life. Time and time again I would run into people who, asked how they were, would admit in a whisper that they preferred lockdown to life before.

Flour disappeared from the shelves as people got back into baking, while others turned to pottery, knitting, gardening or painting; books were read, sex toys ordered at record-breaking rates, and daily walks led people to discover whole areas of their neighbourhoods they never knew existed. Families found themselves spending real time together – not just moments grabbed at the beginning or end of a day. Given space to step back from the relentless grind of life “before”, people were able to experience − albeit fleetingly − a life lived differently.

It would be easy to end with a plea to carry some of the lessons learned in lockdown through to your new normal, but the truth is so many are struggling just to get by financially. The idea that they might turn down work to do yoga or make art is ludicrous. If all New Zealanders are going to be empowered to live happier, healthier, more balanced lives, if Aotearoa is to really become the egalitarian nation we once believed ourselves to be, we’re going to require huge structural changes, and those changes won’t come without pressure from the public on our government and other leaders. And perhaps now is exactly the right time for that to happen. Before lockdown the idea of a different kind of life was too vague, we couldn’t imagine it, and if asked to fight we might have replied, “What for?” But now we’ve tasted it. We know how it feels, that something else is possible. Maybe, just maybe, students in decades to come will write essays about how that was all we needed.

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Winter wanderings 1

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Crossword answe rs from issue # 70 Across 2. Excellent 5. Taciturn 6. Miss 8. Flax 9. Bathe 11. Gig 14. Feijoa 15. Publication 16. Spa 21. Immunity 22. Rummage 23. Beanie 24. Aroha

Down 1. Separation 3. Excavate 4. Lyall 7. Sleep 10. Delicate 12. Matiu 13. Waiohine 17. Autumn 18. Kina 19. Aurora 20. Lullaby

Across

Down

4. Southern lights (6) 8. MÄ ori New Year (8) 9. Wellington harbour reef (7) 11. Caliginous (4) 15. Cosy, snug (11) 17. Think deeply, warm alcohol (4) 18. NZ dog breed (8) 19. Of the sky (9) 21. Flowering house plant (6) 22. Precipitation (4) 23. Warbler (4) 24. Tree, Wellington suburb (4)

1. Lurid (6) 2. Large winter squash (7) 3. Squall (5) 5. Neck warmer (5) 6. Pyrotechnics (9) 7. Star (Latin) (6) 10. Poll, political (10) 12. Promise made at New Year (10) 13. Lobster (8) 14. Oil heater (8) 16. Native NZ palm (5) 20. Rime (5)

Answers will be published in the next issue

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Hunt out opportunity

UOW_1175_CM_A

If 2020 sees you looking for new opportunities, we are ready to welcome you this July. You may be looking for a new start, a change of direction, or a boost to your career. Whatever stage you are in life and whatever your aspirations, you can start to work towards your goals in a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and certificate programmes. We recently took all our learning online to ensure no disruption to study in 2020 and you can also start your study journey online this July.

Apply for July | waikato.ac.nz