EDIBLES

KAI REQUIRED

Kaibosh Food Rescue is running their regular Give a Meal in May campaign once again. Despite their rescuing up to 80 tonnes of surplus food each month, marketing manager Alex MacGibbon says demand is growing. “We supply food to over 125 charities and community groups across the region, and these groups are seeing an increased need for kai all over Wellington.” Kaibosh has recently enlarged their sites in Kāpiti and Lower Hutt, and teams of staff and volunteers are reportedly busier than ever.

GRAZE A GLASS PROHIBIT POP WONDROUS WHITTAKER’S

Chef Max Gordy and wife Stina Persen, both formerly associated with popular joint Hillside, have launched a new venture in Kelburn, a wine bar and pescatarian bistro called Graze. The duo have built the business around sustainability: every ingredient will be sourced within the region, from the line-caught fish right down to the small stuff, like flour and homemade sauces. Max says changing the menu regularly and seasonally will avoid supply problems and keep the ecological impact minimal. The banning of sugary drinks in primary schools has recently been proposed by Minister of Education Chris Hipkins. It is now up for public consultation. The move follows concern about the effects fizzy drinks have on health, dental hygiene, and classroom behaviour. Dr Rob Beaglehole of the Dental Association says “the evidence is clear” fizzy drinks are bad for kids’ teeth. Beaglehole wants the ban extended to secondary schools, stating “this should be done once, done properly.” Porirua’s very own Whittaker’s has been rated one of the most ethical large chocolate brands in the world, following a major study from Macquarie and Wollongong universities in Australia, and The Open University in the UK. Assessing chocolatiers in six categories, the researchers used a four-colour rating scale. Whittaker’s rating were all green (the best) apart from the deforestation category, which was yellow, the next tier down. The worst offenders included Unilever and Godiva, with Kellogg’s earning the worst possible score of six reds: clearly a Special K-se.

DONUT LEAVE

Jackie Lee Morrison (Cap#76), the baking guru behind Lashings Café, has announced “with much sadness” that she will be shutting up shop for good, after a four-year run, on 30 April. The announcement prompted an outcry, then a public outpouring, as Wellington’s donut lovers went through the five stages of grief. Morgan Allan-West, co-owner of nearby café Milk Crate has also just closed up after almost 17 years in the Wellington coffee game. Jackie attributes her decision to a changing economic landscape, Morgan attributes his to lease issues.

CALVADOS COMEBACK PANDEMIC PIVOT RUTHER TASTY

If you’ve ever visited Normandy in northern France you’re likely to have tasted Calvados, an apple brandy with a warm, syrupy bouquet. According to a number of food sites, and culinary contacts in London, the drink could be about to enjoy a resurgence in popularity, as gin did at the beginning of the 2010s. Try the Bloody Mary at Egmont Street Eatery (there’s a glug of calvados in each one), or head to off-menu specialists Poquito and ask to try some. Wellington’s Reusabowl, launched in 2020, began offering reusable containers for takeaway food, but some customers have grown lax about returning their bowls for reuse. Co-founder Bobby Lloyd says they now offer reusable packaging to dozens of workplaces – from large ones like Deloitte, to small co-working spaces. Staff can now take a Reusabowl from the workplace’s supply out for a meal, then back to work. “Making reusing more convenient is the absolute key principle here,” says Lloyd. The Upcycled Grain Project is a Wellington initiative that rescues grain used in the beer brewing process and converts it into tasty snacks. They’ve partnered with Rutherford and Meyer in Lower Hutt to release a new range of crackers made from steeped malted barley, which has previously been used to give body and flavour to ales. These salvaged grains are mixed with 100% natural ingredients to produce the range, available in flavours fig and cardamom, cranberry and coconut, raisin and rosemary, and orange and sesame.

Now we're smoking

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE NAYLOR

It’s time to elevate our BBQ. We’ve cooked up this guide for smoking, with the help of an expert in the field.

Matt Grace, the Urban Lumberjack, is the guy with all the tips you need to start cooking up delicious hotsmoked food on your grill. A life-long lover of being outdoors, lighting fires, and chopping wood, Matt switched after 20 years in telecoms to supplying a range of high-quality smoking woods (think peach, pohutukawa, pear) for the booming New Zealand BBQ industry. “Over the past four to five years, specialist barbecue has established itself in New Zealand. The community around it is fantastic, there’s so much interest in it”

You can find the Urban Lumberjack online at ulj.co.nz

Grill

Sort your grill. Ask yourself how much time you have to commit. The best results are from low and slow cooking, but this means you might have to tend the grill for several hours. Otherwise, a simpler charcoal grill could be the answer. See below to see what grill suits your needs.

Equipment needed

BBQ gloves

You’ll be moving your proteins, adding wood, and handling hot grills and metal.

Heavy duty tin-foil

For wrapping your proteins to lock in the moisture towards the end of a cook.

Digital thermometer

Some can even send the temperature to your phone via Bluetooth.

Protein

Now you’ve got your grill, you need to think about what proteins to use. Certain woods pair better with different proteins. Fish or chicken will take the smoke more intensely than a large piece of brisket. See the chart for a complete guide.

Grills come in all shapes and sizes. The offset and pit barrel smokers have their roots in the Deep South of the USA, where the cheaper cuts like ribs and brisket needed to be cooked slowly, to get them soft and tender. This is where the low and slow smoking method was born, and you can do it too. First things first, you need a grill.

Offset smoker

Cook time: Very long Results 10/10 • Uses charcoal and smoking wood in a separate firebox. • Low-and-slow-style grilling, long cook times: the traditional method for

Texas-style smoking.

Pit barrel smoker

Cook time: Long Results 9/10 • Proteins can be grilled or hung, thanks to the smoker’s size. • Charcoal and wood go in the bottom, and smoke rises up over the meat.

Cook time The protein you’ve chosen will affect the fuel and wood you use. For cooking larger pieces like brisket or ribs you want bigger charcoal that will burn for longer; for fish, sausages, and steaks, smaller charcoal will burn quicker, achieving higher temperatures faster.

Peach and pohutakawa wood are the most popular because of their sweet, distinctive flavours

Wood

The wood goes on once you have the charcoal burning efficiently. This is where you impart the smoke flavour, so it’s important you use the right pieces and research which wood goes well with your protein. Less is more when experimenting (you can always add an extra piece next time). One or two chunks placed over the charcoal is a good place to start.

Rub

Once you know what you’re cooking, season it and explore flavour options like rubs. You don’t need too much, though, as the smoke will do a lot of the work. The popular Texas BBQ style is predominantly just salt, pepper, and oak wood smoke.

Wood type Beef Lamb Pork Poultry Seafood

Apple

Peach

Pear

Cherry

Feijoa

Plum

Oak

Pohutukawa

French oak

Puriri

Ceramic charcoal smoker

Cook time: Medium to long Results 8/10 • Popular charcoal grill which can easily incorporate smoking wood. • Internal ceramic bricks retain heat, keeping the temperature consistent.

Charcoal BBQ

Cook time: Medium Results 7/10 • Your standard backyard

BBQ, ubiquitous and iconic. • Can take chunks of smoking wood on top of charcoals.

Gas grill

Cook time: Medium Smoke flavour 6/10 • The most convenient option, but results in less of the smoke flavours. • Can take a piece of wood directly on the burner or in a metal tray to infuse some smoke.

Caramelised smoked white chocolate and lychee cake

BY JORDAN RONDEL

A completely selftaught baker, Jordan founded The Caker in 2010. She began selling made-toorder cakes, but has evolved with other offerings, all focused on celebration. Writing recipes remains Jordan's favourite part of her job. You might think liquid smoke is only suited to savoury settings, but it’s actually a wonderful ingredient in desserts. In this recipe, I toss white chocolate buttons with some liquid smoke (a little goes a long way, so use it sparingly) and then roast them to caramelise the sugars and enhance the smoky flavour. When these golden buttons are stirred through the cake they impart a gentle smokiness and the result is pretty incredible. Liquid smoke is in most supermarkets, as are tinned lychees. I urge you to give this recipe a go!

For the cake 100g white chocolate buttons 2 teaspoons liquid smoke 150g butter, room temperature 120g caster sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 free-range eggs 125g spelt or all-purpose white flour 75g ground almonds 2 teaspoons baking powder Pinch sea salt 125g full-fat unsweetened Greek yogurt 1 can of lychees, drained and cut in half

For the vanilla bean cream cheese icing 150g butter, softened 110g icing sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 100g cream cheese

For the decorations Handful of white chocolate buttons

Serves 12 1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking tray and 2 x 22cm cake tins with baking paper. 2. First, make the caramelised smoked white chocolate. Combine the white chocolate with the liquid smoke and spread evenly on the lined baking tray. Place in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the buttons are golden in colour. Set aside to cool. 3. Next, make the cake. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy. 4. Add the eggs in one at a time, waiting until each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. 5. Combine the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In two parts, add the dry ingredients. Mix after each addition until just combined, being careful not to over-mix. 6. Gently fold through the yogurt and the smoked caramelised white chocolate buttons. 7. Divide the batter evenly between your two tins and dot in the lychee halves, pressing them down lightly. 8. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until golden in colour and springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted comes out clean. 9. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. 10. Meanwhile, make the icing. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, icing sugar, and vanilla together until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the cream cheese until smooth. 11. Once the cakes are fully cooled, ice one layer and then place the other directly on top. Neatly ice the top of the cake and decorate with a handful of white chocolate buttons. 12. Serve at room temperature. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to three days.

Meet Will

Will Thompson is an engineer by day, barbecue and smoked food enthusiast, home brewer, and foodie by night. By night, I mean he wakes up in the middle of it and tells partner Sophie about his food epiphanies. “The next food experiment,” he exclaims. He tells me his curiosity about food developed early, as he grew up with parents who were creative cooks. We laugh as he shows me a picture from his childhood, a blond toddler fearlessly wielding a huge chef’s knife, surrounded by button mushrooms.

He greets me at home, tongs in hand, wearing a cargo apron and a big smile as we spend the afternoon charring peppers on the grill. The peppers are a nod to his Dad’s cooking. The char draws out the natural sweetness in the capsicum, and the smoke is just enough to give it a touch of savoury flair. According to Will, a dash of freshly squeezed lemon juice and olive oil is “all you’ll ever need,” and as I slurp down a few glistening strips of red and yellow, still deliciously warm from the fire, my tastebuds agree. There’s something so primal and comforting about cooking with fire, honouring the vegetables’ natural sweetness and the savoury quality that smoke imparts.

It wasn’t just vegetables. Will conducted other smokey experiments. As he lifted the lid on the barbecue, I felt like a kid at a friend’s house playing with all the cool toys I wished I had.

We tasted little aluminium foil boats of Whittaker’s Blondie chocolate, freshly ground coffee, herbaceous baby potatoes, pickled mussels and eggs (yes, you can smoke an egg!). I was so excited for our BBQ play date, I even brought along my smoke gun and some lacto-fermented stone fruit, as well as some freshly made caramel (spot the over-eager pastry chef!). We swapped childhood food memories, compared notes on the way the smoke transformed each item, and bonded over Brad Leonie (correction: fan-girled – really, do look him up), while we plated a wee grazing platter to share in the garden by the grill. We finished with a cuppa joe, freshly brewed with the smoked coffee, the pecan wood imparting a subtle bacon quality that was a perfect accompaniment to the smoked caramel and stonefruit dessert. A feast for the senses, all inspired by smoke and fire.

After so much fun experimenting, I left feeling as if I had spent the afternoon at an old friend’s house. That’s what I love about cooking: not only does it bring people together, but also the craziest food combinations. Will talked about how he loved giving every food experiment a go (at least once). That’s the beautiful thing about cooking – there are no rules.

Cinderella and the embers

The name Cinderella comes from the Italian cenere meaning ash, or cinder, and the Cinderella bar and bistro in Willis St is very much a reflection of the folk tale. I found moody dark walls reminiscent of ash, dancing flames in the courtyard fireplace, and food cooked over embers.

General Manager Patrick Ferrier greeted me, and as he tended to the fire, the smell and crackle of burning firewood filled the courtyard. In the kitchen I could see coals smoking away for the evening service ahead.

The kitchen was full of the lovely smell of fresh bread. Chefs Frank, Tom, Zac, and Revo welcomed me with smoked fish frames for a delicious base as they made up their signature Catalan-style dish – clams cooked over embers, swimming in a flavoursome stew with layers of manuka smoke and the flavour of the sea. The chefs cook in front of me, carefully placing pops of fish, octopus, and gooey fondant potatoes through the dish.

A celebration of chestnut, portobello, and enoki mushroom accompanies the main, their natural sweetness teased out with a refreshing spritz of sherry vinegar, with fresh green herbs to top. Simple ingredients with their natural flavours skilfully coaxed out by the fire.

These chefs are masters of the dance in the kitchen (from their Matterhorn and Bresolin days), cooking by intuition and touch, calm and focused as manuka smoke fills the smoker, and pots of stock and sauces bubble. They produce layers of flavour with added fat, smoke and fire, a spritz of acidity, and a herbaceous garnish of tarragon, dill, chives, and parsley. It’s beautiful to watch the final touches added before the dish gets whisked away to the dining area, leaving lingering smoke and mouth-watering smells.

Freshly baked bread, the crust crackling and blistered from the heat, accompanies the dish, and, if you know how to conclude your meal the right (and only) way, then fare la scarpetta it is, using the bread to mop up the remaining liquid.

But, my focus here was meant to be their smokey cocktail. I heard about Cinderella’s smokey espresso martini when they opened more than a year ago, and I am here for Fisher, the bartender, to teach me how to create the bistro’s signature drink.

As a pastry chef I couldn’t help but see similarities with dessert, where every component has been thoughtfully added, layers of toffee caramel from the dark sugar syrup, coffee liqueur as dark and fragrant as vanilla beans, and a touch of mezcal to enhance the gently shaken cream. The cream is given a coal smoke infusion (20 minutes according to the bar’s experiments, no more no less).

Fisher adds a touch of sugar and salt to lend a sharpness to an otherwise flat creamy note. The result is a symphony of smoky cream and bittersweet coffee. It looked and tasted truly indulgent. If you prefer something lighter between post-work and dinner, the smoked Negroni with seasonal fruit infusion was another offering I fancied. Fisher infused the gin with smoked, lacto-fermented nectarines. As I lift the icy glass to my nose, the scent is a fleeting memory of late summer. With just a sip, I felt like I was walking through a nectarine orchard laden with fruit ready to fall.

As I sat down with my Negroni and the clam stew (and bread waiting, of course), I thought back to the way I was taught to cook by my grandmother, using intuition and my senses, and how she learnt to cook, over coals and fire.

I’m always amazed at how food can bring such moments of joy and nostalgia. Food trends come and go, but this type of cooking with smoke and fire will always stay.

Smoked and Pickled

You know you’ve found your thing when you spend every waking hour thinking about it. Well, Alice Lafosse did say that Craig Burgess was up all hours of the night watching BBQ videos on Youtube.

Alice is French, and the two of them met at Meow in the heyday of open floor jazz night Wednesdays.

Craig, I discovered, was the chef who produced – a decade ago, way before pests were cool and trendy to eat – the delicious wallaby wontons served there. Back then, Craig was already breaking down and using the entire wallaby (from suppliers down south), making stock from the bones and cooking the meat in its own fat.

Last September, the pair decided to take the plunge and start up Smoked & Pickled, in a ghost kitchen based here in Wellington. With support from friends, they made the 4am smoke-dreams a reality, and have since relocated to the Kāpiti Coast, where they offer pop-ups and collaborate with local breweries such as Tuatara and Duncan’s Brewery. The Duncan’s pastry stout is on the menu, cooked low and slow into a Smoked and Pickled BBQ sauce which is delicious with their signature ribs.

I spent the afternoon chatting about hospo with them. Their passion for the industry is inspiring and contagious (in the good sense of the word). We spoke about why we do what we love to do, despite the long hours and the stress: and the reactions of the diners and the happy faces. “It makes it worth all the swear words,” says Craig, as we sit out by the wood-fire grill that puffs out wafts of mesquite, pecan, and applewood smoke. We geeked out a bit on the temperatures and timings that are the makings of a perfect brisket, smoke flavour profiles, and how to add layers of flavour with the specific types of wood pellets used. It turns out BBQing and pastry are quite similar after all, with the precise application of time and temperature, and incorporating flavour. Craig lifts the lid on the Traeger and shows me the smoked sea salt he’s been working on, dotted with pops of coriander and chilli. “Goes really well with fish,” he tells me, and his eyes light up at the thought of the next project. “So what’s the next thing?” I ask them, and they beam as they share their big plan to expand Smoked & Pickled: more pop-ups, events, and eventually a return to France to start another one in Lyon, Alice’s hometown. She sighs at the lack of BBQ there, and says her chef friends are already eagerly awaiting their arrival, BBQ in tow.

As Craig pulls the ribs from the grill, the wonderful aroma hugs our tastebuds on a chilly Welly afternoon. Alice appears with a jar of their notoriously spicy birds-eye house pickles: large emerald green gems dotted with chillies, dancing around in a big vinegar jar.

We gather around the mouth-watering array of smoked meats and glistening pickles, and I ask them if they ever get tired of this meal. “Never,” Alice grins. “The brisket toastie is my favourite eaten hot or, when I have finished my shift, cold!”

Sparky CA

Clean Air Approved Wood Burner

Sparky CA is here to meet the urban demand for a compact, good looking small fire.

Streamlined panels, fixed log base and a stove-top cooking surface with optional top rails.

Colour options available.

info@wagenerstoves.co.nz 09 408 2469

Wellington Botanic Gardens

Part of Experience Wellington. Principal Funder Wellington City Council.

What’s on at Circa Theatre

His/Herstory

I’ll Tell You This for Nothing by Kate JasonSmith Milord Goffredo by Jan Bolwell $25–$54 22 Apr–14 May

Kate JasonSmith’s acclaimed show, I’ll Tell You This for Nothing, is the dramatic and often humorous tale of her mother’s life about war, courage, danger and romance. Milord Goffredo is Jan Bolwell’s dynamic re-creation of her father Geoffrey’s WWII exploits – a Dunedin butcher who became ‘a bloody legend’ in a small northern Italian town, where he lived in a cave for two years after twice escaping from his German captors. Cringeworthy – The 80’s

A slice of Kiwiana in the 80s! Directed and Devised by Andrea Sanders $25–$54

14 May–11 June

Cringeworthy is back, baby with a brand-new show! A righteous, stellar, fantabulous blast from the past that is equal parts nostalgic and hilarious. Following on from the highly successful Cringeworthy [the 70s] this show takes you back to NZ in the 1980s. It’s a feast of contagious Kiwi songs served with a side of spandex, a huge dollop of cheesy comedy, and stunning vocals. Made possible with the help of Centrepoint Theatre.

Image by Stephen A’Court and Design by Jemma Cheer.

Nga - Rorirori

Indigenous. Dance. Theatre. Farce. PREMIERE SEASON Directed by Hone Kouka Presented by Tawata Productions

$25–$45 18–25 June

A tale of greed and aroha, told through choreography and clowning, Ngā Rorirori is the new work from the writer-director Hone Kouka, of landmark theatre productions Waiora, The Prophet and Bless The Child. Ngā Rorirori pushes the boundaries of live performance as we know it.

Image by Aneta Pond.

Wonderkind

Endless possibilities for wonder and joy lie in true friendship. Devised by Timothy Fraser, Kerryn Palmer, and Emma Rattenbury Directed by Kerryn Palmer General Admission $15 Under 2’s free Family pass $50 (4 tickets) ECC/Schools Pricing $12 9–30 July

Wonderkind is a non-verbal show for children aged three to seven. With original music by Craig Sengelow, design by Sean Coyle and puppetry by international puppeteer Ana Lorite of Naranjarte, Wonderkind promises to be a magical theatrical journey for children and families.

Image by Rebekah de Roo.

Heartbreak in the theatre

How to cope during and after covid. Sarah Lang talks to the sector about coping.

Since covid came calling, it’s been a rough tough spell for the arts sector. Shutdowns of shows. Cancellations. Postponements, with no new dates to pencil in. Performances not financially feasible, because of caps on numbers. Getting events ready with little certainty they’ll go ahead, let alone break even. At those that more recently went ahead, attendance has largely been poor. Rather than going out for dinner and a show, many of us have succumbed to Netflix.

For arts practitioners the situation has taken a toll, with livelihoods under strain – in addition to frustration, isolation, and stress.

Theatre-maker Eleanor Bishop had created and rehearsed boundary pushing show Aliens & Anorexia for the 2022 New Zealand Festival. But the festival had to cancel most events. “That was devastating,” Eleanor says. “Entering year three of this pandemic, my main feeling is frustration: it’s frustrating not to get to practice one’s craft. Theatre is an art form that relies on communion with an audience in front of you.”

Dancer-composer Lucy Marinkovich feels similarly. “Since March 2020 I’ve had international performances, residencies and choreographic collaborations cancelled, and a fair bit of rescheduling for Aotearoa projects and residencies. The big cancellation for Borderline Arts Ensemble was having our work Strasbourg 1518 cancelled part-way through its premiere season at the 2020 New Zealand Festival.”

“Performance cancellations are heart-breaking. Months or years of work, energy, and ideas liquefy and melt away without being seen by the intended audience. It’s a deeply disappointing anti-climax.” Performance cancellations, are still sad, but are now to be expected for the performing-arts community, says Lucy. “Knowing how to move forward, safely, with your arts practice is difficult and daunting.” She’s getting on with whatever doesn’t yet involve performance, including research for two choreographic works, and taking a business and leadership course.

The performing arts have been hardest hit, but it’s also been tricky to put on visual arts events safely. Linda Lee, a Māori-Chinese artist, creates artworks exploring identity and family histories, through installations, raranga (Māori weaving), and book forms. She mainly works in production roles for arts events, which often take place under the umbrella of wider festivals including the Hutt Winter Festival and CubaDupa. She presented What If The City Was a Theatre, a city-wide programme of pop-up art and performance, for the 2021 Performance Arcade.

She’s also co-manager, with her life partner Jason Muir, of Urban Dream Brokerage. Established by Sophie Jerram and Mark Amery in 2013 as an arm of Letting Space (which commissions and curates art projects in public spaces), UDB literally serves as a broker. It approaches owners of empty or under-used properties and spaces seeking permission for creatives to use them temporarily to bring vitality and a sense of community to the inner city.

UDB brokered 120-plus projects from 2013 to 2018. Linda and Jason (who had met at a related event) relaunched it in 2020.

“Urban Dream Brokerage and Letting Space changed my whole view on the arts regarding collaboration, being community-focused, and using unconstrained spaces,” Linda says. She’d come from an “institutional background”: teaching in schools, studying at universities, and briefly working in art galleries. “I found it frustrating working in ‘white-box’ spaces with predetermined ideas about what art was.”

Linda is also the founder/manager of the Shared Lines Collaborative, which emerged from the earthquakes that devastated Canterbury, and Sendai, Japan, in 2011. Shared Lines is now a collective of 140-plus artists and arts producers. It has promoted artistic exchange between, and staged events in, earthquakeaffected cities: Sendai, and Christchurch, Kaikōura, and Wellington. Linda, who has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury, later studied at Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research to understand art’s role in building resilience.

When New Zealand’s 2020 lockdown was announced, Linda and Shared Lines co-producer Audrey Baldwin were in Japan, having taken with them New Zealand artworks for an exhibition in Sendai (which went ahead, but without them). “We got home just before lockdown.” A tour/artist exchange was canned. “I was going bonkers, thinking ‘what will we do instead?’”

As for covid’s impact on arts practitioners, “I can’t talk on behalf of everybody. But I think many people just have broken hearts. You put so much time and energy into creating work, thinking about how it will be received, so not seeing its impact on an audience is really disappointing.” There’s been a lot of waiting to see how things play out.

In the covid era, some people think the arts are a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”. However, Linda says the arts are even more crucial during difficult times – not just for arts practitioners, but also to bring communities together.

Throughout her life, Linda has learned to adapt to the unexpected and the difficult: when she moved around as a child in an army family; when she found out aged 19 that she was adopted (by Māori relatives via whāngai); when she returned from overseas to her “broken” hometown Christchurch post-quake; when in 2012 rheumatoid arthritis forced her to quit her career as a high school art-and-photography teacher; when she moved to Wellington for love but the relationship didn’t work out. In 2015, Linda completed a graduate diploma majoring in event management to allow her flexible working hours for health reasons, and to build a career as an arts producer. For years, the condition severely restricted her mobility, but she’s managing better with new medication.

Linda, who is immune-compromised, hasn’t let covid prevent her presenting public arts events. Might she have transferable tips for safely staging other events?

She has used the keep-art-outdoors-to-reduce-risk approach. An artistic response to Covid-induced isolation, Shared Lines: Pūtahitanga (“convergence”) is a 72-metre-long artwork (think a horizontal banner) wrapped around Te Ngākau Civic Square’s vacant buildings. Sixty artists countrywide each contributed one work on uniformly sized bamboo paper using mediums of their choice, including digitised images of 3D works. Given measurements including the previous work’s finishing point, artists made pieces that joined up with their next-door neighbours. The work is on display for several more months, and there’s also an online exhibition.

Accompanying Pūtahitanga initially was Shared Lines’ pop-up maker space Awakening the Taniwha, in a street-front space on Courtenay Place, thanks to Reading Cinema. A miniature version of Pūtahitanga could be viewed along the walls, and the public could create Taniwha-inspired art with help from and conversations with Linda (a raranga teacher), weaver Frank Topia, and other artists. Master carvers Natanahira Pona and Ngaroma Riley created resources. “Taniwha,” Linda says, “can be a metaphor for the pandemic, vaccines, mandates, protests, and more”.

Linda avoided catching covid at the space. “We wanted to be welcoming but also protect ourselves.” They handed out masks. Those without vaccine passes were offered a RAT test to take home, and could return if it was negative (no one took them up on this). Groups could book if they wanted the space to themselves. Linda also created click-and-collect packs, leaving kete outside so people could take home then return art materials. (You can still download DIY “maker” resources.)

Will going out to arts events become more normal as covid becomes endemic? That’s the hope, but no one’s sure.

One thing’s for sure: artists have needed extra support. In February, the Government announced a $121-million Omicron package. The existing Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme was boosted by $70.7 million (in addition to an initial $22.5 million).

In effect, if an arts/cultural event set to take place before 31 January 2023 is pre-registered and later cancelled, organisers can get funding to meet their own and contractors’ expenses. Linda was paid this way for her producer role for a giant-puppet parade at the cancelled 2022 CubaDupa. “We’re lucky the government’s done that for us; in the past when things didn’t go ahead we just didn’t get paid.”

Also in February, the government’s Cultural Sector Emergency Relief Fund got a further $35.5 million (after an initial $5 million) for “a last-resort fund” providing financial support for cultural organisations, including sole traders with employees “at clear risk of no longer operating viably”. This fund also includes $5,000 grants for adversely affected selfemployed arts practitioners.

In March, Creative New Zealand – which provides hotly contested arts grants – announced its first Remuneration Policy for Artists and Arts Practitioners, which commits to supporting and promoting arts practitioners’ right to fair remuneration. This includes advocating adoption of the policy’s principles by funders – including other central and local government agencies, trusts, foundations, and the private sector. CNZ Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright says the policy “recognises the value of the arts, creative and cultural practice to the social, cultural, economic, and environmental wellbeing of Aotearoa New Zealand”.

“The challenges of maintaining a sustainable career in the arts and creative sector include low rates of pay, a lack of job continuity, limited ‘safety nets’ and the thin margins many arts organisations operate on, and therefore a lack of resilience in response to shocks across New Zealand’s arts ecosystem,” Wainwright says. And covid clearly counts as a shock. “The impact of covid-19 on the arts sector is significant and is being felt keenly by our artists and practitioners.”

Meanwhile, the Wellington City Council’s Living Wage for Events Fund, running from 2021 to 2024, enables (non-council) event organisers to provide the living wage for themselves, staff, and contractors including participating artists, by giving top-ups.

Linda would like the government to introduce a basic weekly income payment for artists, similar to the 2001–2012 ‘Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment’ scheme.

Is it feasible to be an artist right now? “Don’t underestimate the resilience of artists. We’re used to living on the fringes of society, and being resourceful.” Also, adversity may actually spark creativity, she says. “The way we interact with art will probably change.” While it’s not clear what will unfold, she’s confident she’ll adapt, with resilience.