Dunedin Arts and Cultural Events

April 2005 to May 2005

Following is a schedule of confirmed events in the City of Dunedin. The Dunedin City Council (DCC) City Marketing distributes the information on behalf of the attractions that appear below. Please contact event organisers directly for further information and confirmation of dates and times.

April 2005

University of Otago - Lunchtime Theatre: Bite size Shows

Lunchtime Theatre is celebrating its thirty years innovation of Theatre Studies at the University of Otago and has been pleasing audiences ever since its conception. There are a huge variety of performance styles - from improvised theatre to naturalistic plays, to simply the most bizarre material encountered.

A Talk in the Park by Alan Ayckbourn

Different. Diverse. Dissimilar. Conflicting. Opposite. Unalike. The Same? Five people. Think too much. Different lives, Different times. Who was the last person you saw that you didn't know? What did you think? A walk in the park for you. A talk in the park for them. The same...

Runs Until 1 April 2005, 1.00pm

This Product Contains no CFC or HCFC by Scott Ransom

Audience members, you will be touched! Dance, monkey! Dance!

7 & 8 April 2005, 1.00pm

The Myth of Stephen Dedalus by Stayci Childs

This play about Art and the Meaning of Life is based on the writings of James Joyce.

14 & 15 April 2005, 1.00pm

Eddie and the Afterlife by Lucy Schmidt

“Angels in America?” Not quite, but angels step in to put the dark times right. Et in arcadia ergo party.

21 & 22 April 2005, 1.00 pm

Einstein’s Tongue by Jerry Jaffe

You can’t put a bigger box into a smaller box, and the poetry in the night around us.

28 & 29 April 2005, 1.00pm

Allen Hall Theatre, University of Otago, Union Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Fiona McLaughlin, phone (03) 479 8896

Dunedin Public Library Network

Saucy Readings

The Fortune Theatre's lusty cast of the NZ Premiere of “Things We Do For Love” by Alan Ayckbourn, will present an exciting live performance, at the Dunedin City Library. Experience a 20-minute excerpt, with an accompanying afternoon tea, and catch the rest of the play only at the Fortune Theatre until 7 May.

5 April 2005, 2.30pm

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

7 Poets

7 Poets at 7.00 pm on 7 April at Port Chalmers Public Library. This is a special opportunity to come and hear 7 Dunedin poets read their work. Poets performing include Rob Allan, Diane Brown, Kay McKenzie Cooke, David Eggleton, David Howard, Martha Morseth and Peter Olds.

7 April 2005, 7.00pm

Port Chalmers Library, Beach Street, Port Chalmers

Discovery Tours

Take a free tour of the City Library every Tuesday and every last Saturday of the month.

5, 12, 19, 26 April 2005, 10.30am and 1.00pm. 30 April 2005, 2.00pm.

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Turn Off TV Week

A fortnight of wonderful community events staged at Blueskin Bay.

23 April - 8 May 2005

Blueskin Bay Library, Blueskin Bay.

Contact for enquiries: Fiona Sherriff, phone (03) 474 5080

Stack Trek Tours

Go where few borrowers have gone before. Visit the City Library’s basement area and find those long lost “oldies but goodies” every last Saturday of the month.

30 April 2005, 1.00pm

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Liz Knowles, phone (03) 474 3317

Globe Theatre

Daughters of Heaven by Michaelanne Forster

Daughters of Heaven is a play directed by Corey Anderson. Daughters of Heaven traces the same events as Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson’s version of the tragedy that rocked Christchurch in the 1950s when 2 young women killed the mother of one of them. We know what happened. Michaelanne Forster’s play, written before Jackson’s film was made and while she lived in Dunedin, explores the possible reasons why it happened.

7 - 16 April 2005 (excluding Monday 11 April)

Globe Theatre, 104 London Street, Dunedin

Contact for bookings: Globe Theatre Box Office, phone (03) 4773274

Contact for enquiries: Rosemary Beresford, phone (03) 4797273 (day), (03) 4780248 (evening)

Hocken Library

Cantata: a play of the trace II - A multi-media installation by Lyn Plummer
Using choral sound tracks and richly surfaced objects which are incised, slit, painted, stitched and adorned with glass beads, threads, hair and nails, Plummer's installation changes the secular space of the gallery into a theatre of ritual. Head of Painting at the School of Art, Otago Polytechnic for the past seven years, Lyn Plummer has previously lived in the far north and outback areas of Australia and in Papua New Guinea, which has encouraged an interest in ceremonial costume. Since 1990 she has treated surface in her painting as if it was human skin, showing how it bears the traces of cultural and personal memory of sexuality, sacrifice and power .

Runs Until 11 April 2005

Das Endeavour: sculpture by Evan Jones with Art from Captain Cooks Voyages curated by Anne Harlow

An installation of figurative sculpture and artefacts in which Evan Jones (completing his Master of Fine Arts) engages ideas associated with the museum, colonial heroism and the collection of heritage. Insignificant details in history are distorted and re-presented by Jones as fact, with particular reference drawn to James Cook, Bernini and Wedgwood. Painstakingly crafted and Neo-classical in style - yet made from the hobbyist material “Das” (an air-hardening polymer clay) - Jones’ work in humorous and intimate. These works are combined with prints, paintings and books from the Hocken Collections related to Captain Cooks voyaging in the Pacific.

22 April - 18 June 2005

Hocken Library, cnr Anzac Avenue & Parry Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Pennie Hunt, phone (03) 479 5648

Dunedin Centre

A Chamber Music New Zealand Concert

The first concert of the Chamber Music New Zealand 2005 Celebrity Season features The New Zealand String Quartet in concert performing Haydn’s ‘String Quartet Opus 76 No 5’ in D, Crumb’s ‘Black Angels’ and Beethoven’s ‘String Quartet Opus 132’ in A minor.

2 April 2005, 8.00pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for Enquiries: Dunedin Concerts Manager, Dorothy Duthie, phone (03) 481 1382

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Southern Sinfonia - An Afternoon in England

The Southern Sinfonia’s opening 2005 concert features works by three of England’s most outstanding composers. A highlight will be the performance of Vaughan Williams’s Oboe Concerto with soloist Robert Orr (Principal Oboe with the NZSO). Also in the programme will be works by Frank Bridge and Elgar, providing a delightful kaleidoscope of English Experiences. Southern Sinfonia’s Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas Braithwaite will also wield the baton for Beethoven’s dramatic Symphony No. 2, which concludes the programme.

10 April 2005, 3.00pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Contact for enquiries: Katie Ellwood, phone (03) 477 5623; email southernsinfonia@xtra.co.nz

The Topp Twins

The living, singing, dancing, fit-inducing, cultural caricatures of New Zealand are back, fresh from sell-out shows around Australia and with a new CD to boot. Popular kiwi icons Camp Mother and Camp Leader and the Kens, are joined by new characters, Hertie & Gertie, yodelling pig farmers from Switzerland. This comic, spontaneous, boundless pair brings you a riotous comedy show, more fun than a possum up your trousers.

23 April 2005, 8.00pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for bookings and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek phone (03) 477 8597

A Chamber Music New Zealand Concert

The second concert of the Chamber Music New Zealand 2005 Celebrity Season features UK pianist Piers Lane performing music by Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert and Liszt. The evening’s programme includes Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 27 No 2 ‘Moonlight’, ‘Allegretto’ from Symphony No 7; Schumann’s Exercises on a Theme of Beethoven and ‘Fantasie’ in C Opus 17; Schubert’s ‘Impromptu’ in G flat; and Beethoven/Liszt a song from ‘ An die ferne Geliebte’.

27 April 2005, 8 pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for Enquiries: Dunedin Concerts Manager, Dorothy Duthie, pphone (03) 481 1382

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre, Dunedin, phone (03) 477 8597

Hilux Highway of Legends

Pacific Entertainment is proud to announce the biggest tour of New Zealand country music superstars ever assembled. Iconic Kiwi entertainers Jodi Vaughan, Gray Bartlett, Brendan Dugan, Patsy Riggir, the Hamilton Country Bluegrass Band together with compere Martin Crump will travel the length of the country in March and April this year with the reunion tour fans have been wanting for years. The million dollar-selling artists will combine to perform their entire chart topping songs known and loved by many.

15 April 2005, 8.00pm

Dunedin Town Hall, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for booking and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Boost Mobile Hook-Up Tour 2

NZ Hip Hop Heavyweights join forces for The Boost Mobile Hook Up Tour 2. Now in its second year, Dawn Raid and Boost Mobile join forces once again to bring you the biggest names in Aotearoa's hip hop scene touring 15 towns and cities around the country. The results are in and since the last Hook Up Tour in March 2004, the local hip hop scene has had 5 debut #1 singles and has created some of the biggest new names in the NZ music scene. Leading the way with Hip Hop Heavyweights Savage, King Kapisi and Deceptikonz, this year's tour boasts an impressive lineup including Fast Crew, DJ Sir Vere, Mareko, Dei Hamo, Misfits of Science and Adeaze (with full live band). This year the tour also combines the key elements from the 4 corners of hip hop with The Disruptive Crew, Askew and the Disruptiv All Stars taking their unique style of street art and breaking around the country. The tour kicks off in Christchurch on 15th April, then heads to Invercargill and back up to Auckland stopping off at 15 towns along the way. This year's tour has been refined and the shows will include a huge sound system, amazing audio visual stage props, skate board ramps, graffiti art, break dancers and local emerging talent. As Brotha D says "The best just got better!!". So don't miss it - the Boost Mobile Hook Up Tour 2 will be turning the music realm upside down as it sets another new precedent in Hip Hop.

16 April 2005, 8.00pm

Dunedin Town Hall, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for booking and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

RSA Choir Anzac Day Revue

The RSA Choir is a familiar sound in the Dunedin Town Hall having performed at its opening ceremony in 1930 and regularly since. It is fitting therefore that the Choir’s most important annual concert be included in the Dunedin Town Hall’s 75th celebration programme. This outstanding male choir captures many moods during its Anzac Day concert and the audience will experience many emotions, during this nostalgic musical variety concert. In 1972 Vera Lynn performed with the RSA Choir at the Dunedin Town Hall so it’s a sure bet that Vera Lynn fans will be in for a treat tonight.

25 April 2005, 7.30pm

Dunedin Town Hall, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: David More, phone (03) 476 2521

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre Ticketek, Dunedin, phone (03) 477 8597

Cleveland Living Arts Centre

Easter Show

Artists have been invited to respond to the theme of Easter. This group exhibition is sure to delight and disgust. Pagan and religious - any interpretation goes.

Runs Until 2 April 2005

The Mind in the Cave

Adam Douglass, Mike Devereux and Glen Clark are all young Otago Fine Arts graduates who have been exploring, through painterly process, particular relationships they feel with the landscape.

5 - 17 April 2005

Masami Yamazaki

Known in Japan for her large-scale soft sculptures and outdoor installations. Masami exhibits for the first time in New Zealand with a selection of paintings and sculptures.

18 - 29 April 2005

Arthouse - the 1995 Print Portfolio

Established in June 1993, the Arthouse was an important chapter in Dunedin’s Art history. An artist run co-operative studio, gallery and art education space; it contributed to many an early career. As a fundraising project a limited edition of 30 print portfolios were made, only 17 of which had been made available for purchase by the public. The contributing artists were: Barry Cleavin, Inge Doesburg, Irene Ferguson, Roger Hall, Ralph Hotere, Clive Humphries, Kathryn Madill, Els Nordhoof, Jo Ogier, Jenna Packer, Eion Stevens, Marilyn Webb and Dan Weldon. A full set of these prints will be on show for the first time since 1995.

19 April - 14 May 2005

Cleveland Living Arts Centre, First Floor, Dunedin Railway Station, Dunedin.

Monday - Friday, 10.00am - 4.00pm; Saturday, 10.00am - 2.00pm

Contact for enquiries: Kari Morseth, phone (03) 477 7291

Dunedin Regent Theatre

World Cinema Showcase

The New Zealand Film Festival Trust, organisers of the International Film Festival, are pleased to collaborate for the seventh year with the Regent Theatre to bring you a fine selection of new and classic films from all around the world. This lively programme of terrific films, old and new, includes premiere screenings of the most anticipated films of the year including Pedro Almodovar’s complex noir melodrama Bad Education as the opening night film, and 2005 Oscar Nominated real life drama Hotel Rwanda . The selection heralds the return to the big screen of some all-time classics such as Buster Keaton’s comic masterpiece The General and the film that helped launch Federico Fellini to international stardom, La Strada. There will be plenty of NZ premieres, including some extraordinary documentaries, a gripping French thriller and Tony Gatlif’s (Latcho Drom, Gadjo Dilo) visually and musically exhilarating Exiles . As always, the World Cinema Showcase also features welcome reprises of some of the gems from last year’s International Film Festival that should not be missed on the big screen. Fans of animation or those that just love a great story can enjoy four films from the Ghibli Studio - the creative home of movies such as Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Music lovers will be treated to screenings of three of the documentaries from Martin Scorcese’s acclaimed The Blues series. Festival booklets are available from the Regent Theatre.

4 - 21 April 2005

Contact for enquiries: Robyn Harper, phone (04) 802 2575 or email robyn@nzff.co.nz

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre Ticketek , phone (03) 477 8597

Muldoon by David McPhail

Calling a snap election doesn’t give you a lot of time to prepare, Mr Muldoon?”… “Doesn’t give my opponents much time either.” “From the moment he strides on stage this is Muldoon… As a piece of theatre, McPhail’s Muldoon is an admirable achievement.” Sunday Star Times. Sir Robert David Muldoon was Prime Minister from 1975 - 1984. He survived carless days, the Springbok Tour, the Falklands War and two coups led from within his own party. In 1984 Sir Robert David Muldoon lost the two things of which he was most proud - the leadership of the country and his own political career. McPhail’s play focuses on that fateful evening in July 1984, the day of the snap election called by Muldoon one month previously. Packed with political intrigue this funny and moving drama explores Muldoon’s drive for success and obsession with power. “I made a lifetime of enemies,” said Muldoon.

29 April 2005, 8.00pm

The Wizard Of Oz Show

The Yellow Brick Road leads to New Zealand this April. Children are invited to join Shakey the Scarecrow, Shiney the Tinman, Scarey the Lion and their friends from Oz in their adventures down the Yellow Brick Road as The Wizard of Oz Show travels around New Zealand during the April school holidays. Through more than 480 performances around Australia, a full scale musical, fundraisers, hospital visits and an Annual Wizard of Oz Festival, the cast have thrilled easily over 500,000 people. Children are invited to come to the show dressed as a fairy, munchkin, or any of their favourite Oz characters and have a fun time. Shakey the Scarecrow and some of his friends will be available for a short while after shows for photographs and autographs!

For more details of the show, visit www.thewizardofozshow.com

30 April 2005, 10.00am

Regent Theatre, 17 The Octagon, Dunedin

Contact for bookings and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Peter Rae Gallery - Mainly Paper

Exhibition of works from artists including Claire Beynon, Don Binney, Kees Bruin, Inge Doesburg, Simon Kaan, John Mitchell, and Bryan Poole.

Runs Until 5 April 2005

Peter Rae Gallery, 31 Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Peter Rae, phone (03) 470 1022 or 027 458 5424, peterraegallery@xtra.co.nz ; www.peterraegallery.co.nz

Milford Galleries

J S Parker: Four Big Paintings

John Parker is turning sixty and is celebrating with four large works at Milford Galleries Dunedin. A Continuation of the Plain Song Series, which he began in the late 1980s, these paintings of the Canterbury and Marlborough plains use colour and intense layered brushwork (a misnomer in that the paint is applied thickly with a palette knife). The title, Plain Song, alludes to the medieval Gregorian chant, the shapes of the 'plains' - the land, which provides the inspiration - and puns on the two-dimensional 'planes' of the Cubists. It also conveys plainness as opposed to embroidery or exaggeration. Parker has always been drawn to emotive rather than hard-edged art and believes in eliminating in painting any obstacles to the spirit: "If your paintings are going to have a language, it has got to be felt. It's a physical thing," he says. Exhibiting regularly since 1967, Parker's work is held in many public and private collections nationally and internationally. He was Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago in 1975 and since then has lived and worked in Marlborough.

Runs Until 9 April 2005

Joanna Braithwaite: Selected Works

Milford Galleries Dunedin is celebrating Joanna Braithwaite at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery with an exhibition of her recent paintings. Braithwaite neither intends to shock and confront with her work. Two headed swans, frog rains and a dachshund using a wheelchair fascinate, compel and involve the viewer raising questions of human interaction with the world of animals. The richly painted canvases, fluid brushwork and simplified images and colours reveal both elegance and unexpected beauty, inviting contemplation. Says Braithwaite: “The relationship that exists between people and animals is often one of dependence, sometimes one of fear. I have consistently pursued an interest in painting about these sometimes unusual relationships. In paintings such as Twist of Fate one species becomes another - such works are about life and death - time passing. The fragility attached to a life that ends and the optimism that a new life brings.” Joanna Braithwaite was born in Halifax, England in 1962 and came to New Zealand in 1965. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 1985 and was awarded the Ethel Rose Overton Scholarship in 1983, and the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award in 1990. She was awarded merit prizes in the 1997 and 1998 Visa Gold Art Awards. Since 1999 she has lived and worked in Sydney and has held many solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia. She has work in many private and public collections in New Zealand, Australia and London including the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Brisbane Public Art Gallery and the Dunmoochin Foundation in Melbourne.

Runs Until 9 April 2005

Glass Invitational NZ

The Glass Invitational NZ curated by Stephen Higginson is the premier glass exhibition in New Zealand surveying major achievement and innovation of the preceding two years. NZ art glass is internationally renowned, distinctive and imbued with character. One of the significant strengths is revealed by its variety: the geometric abstract concerns of Borrella, the layered gestural forms of Amsel, the colours of Robinson, the pan-Pacific language of Siddell's necklaces contrast sharply with the domestic narrative of Fairclough and McClure's sophisticated remodelling of everyday objects. Featured artists in this exhibition include, Claudia Borrella, Galia Amsel, Ann Robinson, Emily Siddell, Wendy Fairclough and Elizabeth McClure with other work by Garry Nash, Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams.

The Glass Invitational NZ exhibition in Dunedin is part of a national tour

16 April - 31 May 2005

Milford Galleries Dunedin, 18 Dowling Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Karen Trebilcock, phone (03) 477 8275

Fortune Theatre - Things we do for Love by Alan Ayckbourn

Lust brings out the worst in people. Gilbert, living downstairs, is so tragically devoted to his landlady, Barbara, that he pretends to take her old clothes to the charity shop and then secretly wears them himself, while painting her naked likeness on his ceiling. Barbara, beautiful and brittle, is a high-powered executive who cares little for romance and its sticky consequences. Squeakily perky Nikki and her fiancé, hunky Hamish the oceanographer, have just moved in upstairs, making the bed springs sing. It is hatred at first sight as Barbara and Hamish spit and snarl at each other - but is the crusty, curmudgeonly spinster melting into the fray? Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the first playwright to be knighted since Noel Coward, is also one of the world’s most successful. This new comedy is a study of the effects of love; whether we can live without it, and more importantly, once we have it, the things we’ll do to keep it.

15 April - 7 May 2005

Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Lisa Scott, phone (03) 477 1695

Contact for Bookings: Box Office, phone (03) 477 8323

Blue Oyster

Gala Opening …all new Blue Oyster

Blue Oyster took the opportunity when moving premises to completely redesign the gallery space to better-fit diverse exhibitions needs and add to their existing programmes. The Gallery continues with the two exhibition spaces developed 2004 and some new initiatives. The gala opening on 19 April will see the launch of two exciting new programmes. The first is a purpose built gallery, which they have provisionally named the ‘Dark Side’. It will be equipped with new technology especially for ‘new media’ work (video and sound work) and will run on a three-week exhibition cycle the same as the existing spaces. The second addition is a permanent video lounge called ‘Blue Movies’ that will have an open programme on a monitor, the idea is that we will show whatever is brought in (possibly only once!) on the condition we can have a copy…with a view to building up a library. The first exhibition to launch the ‘Dark Side’ is a digital installation by Chris Baldwin opening 19 April and running until 7 May 2005.

19 April 2005

Emily Harris

Harris is exploring what she calls an ‘adolescent aesthetic.’ The work looks at the heightened resonance of the music, imagery and ideas when they are encountered during formative experiences. The work is torn between the contradictory impulses of embarrassed rejection of sentimental cliché and Kitsch while refusing to abandon the transformative possibilties of genuine emotional response wherever it is found. Appropriating ‘popular culture’ material from television, radio and the Internet, she then filters the images through several stages; first composing images on the computer, painting copies of these, then digitally photographing the paintings and printing them in a large glossy format. These works defined as paintings that reflect an aesthetic of the digital, ideas of authenticity and quality are both challenged in the process of copy and translation.

19 April - 7 May 2005

Blue Oyster East side

Monica Peters - morph Observations in the Field

Observations in the Field exhibition is more about the process of creating work than it is about presenting conclusions. Drawing provides the means- fundamental stuff, direct, not being seduced by 21st century technology. Graphite directly on to walls, chalk straight on to blackboards; the works are large, ephemeral and immediate. The descriptive quality of these lines is used to depict a slice of the surrounding diversity, a cross section of the seemingly endless structural permutations of the natural world. Diagrams, the crisp didactic sort usually found in botany books, provide the initial cue. From here, the drawings are added to and subtracted from over the three-week duration of the exhibition. The residues of previous drawings are left on surfaces as scaffolding for subsequent drawings. As a series of ongoing a constantly evolving works, the decision-making process of what-should-come-next takes place within the gallery. The gallery becomes a place of action with the works-in-progress functioning as a part performance; where being present and active in the exhibition space, bridges the gap between artist and public.

19 April - 7 May 2005

Blue Oyster West side

Blue Oyster Gallery, Basement, Moray Chambers, 30 Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Ali Bramwell, phone (03) 479 0197

Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Gretchen Albrecht: Returning

This exhibition showcases a selection of evocative, richly coloured and often spectacular paintings by one of New Zealand’s leading abstractionists. This exhibition focuses on her signature hemisphere and oval works, and ranges from pieces made during Albrecht’s Frances Hodgkins residency in Dunedin in 1981 through to recent works.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs Until 8 May 2005

John Kinder’s New Zealand

Few people realise that the Reverend Dr John Kinder was the only 19th century New Zealand artist to work with both painting and photography as visual mediums. Such a combined visual talent was not only exceptional in New Zealand - it has very few 19th century international parallels. John Kinder’s New Zealand is the fist exhibition to survey Kinder’s twin achievements as an artist of paint as well as the camera.

An Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki touring exhibition.

Runs Until 8 May 2005

Hotbed: Loans, Purchases and Gifts

The word ‘collection’ suggests static objects stored in temperature-controlled rooms. This late-summer show, however, reveals the Gallery’s contemporary collection as a place of heat, bizarre beauty and unstable energy - a hotbed of growth and change. Featuring the work of Jae Hoon Lee, Bill Hammond, Seraphine Pick, 2005 Frances Hodgkins fellow Rohan Wealleans and others, Hotbed showcases art in which nature gets pushed to unnatural extremes, paint bulges and peels, and familiar objects grow minds of their own.

Runs Until 12 May 2005

Joanna Braithwaite: Wonderland

The world of Joanna Braithwaite's Wonderland is part menagerie, part bestiary, and part human zoo. Her richly brushed canvases are places where the laws of nature are calmly bent, and wonderful hybrids emerge. Snakes grow into swans, frogs rain from the sky, and humans are lofted skyward by birds and butterflies. Braithwaite paints her strange creatures with such assurance that they seem perfectly natural. In the process, she reminds us how strange 'the natural' really is.

Organised in collaboration with Christchurch Art Gallery

Runs Until 15 May 2005

Big Wall: Pip Culbert

Pip Culbert takes everything but the seams away from familiar fabric objects, and what is left provides a lot to look at and think about. In this new work, Culbert has cut apart and opened up thirty-six domestic aprons. Floating on the Big Wall, they form a strange new graphic alphabet - an array of signs and gestures that the original aprons never dreamed they contained.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Art to Express New Zealand

Curated by Anne Harlow, this exhibition explores perceptions of the New Zealand landscape through a selection of paintings, works on paper, photographs and installations from the permanent collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs Until 28 August 2005

Sites for the Eyes: European Landscapes from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Collection

Sites for the Eyes is an exhibition curated by Peter Stupples, formerly Associate Professor of Art History, University of Otago. The exhibition features works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection that trace the history of the European landscape tradition.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs Until 28 August 2005

For the Love of Christ

The Christian faith and Christian themes are expressed in many ways in this exhibition drawn from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs Until 28 August 2005

Frances Hodgkins: Daughter of Dunedin

Daughter of Dunedin is the second exhibition in the gallery permanently devoted to the works of one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded artists, Frances Hodgkins. The exhibition offers the viewer an insight into the artist’s early life and work.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Ongoing exhibition

Sara Hughes: Love Me Tender

Sara Hughes brings colour and life to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s Otago Daily Times Gallery with her distinctive variations on the Paisley patterns that Scottish settlers brought to Dunedin. Cut from pre-painted sheets of sticky vinyl, Hughes’ Paisley shapes stretch and flex as if manipulated on a computer screen - nineteenth century forms refreshed by twenty-first century technology.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Ongoing exhibition

Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 30 The Octagon, PO Box 5045, Dunedin

Contact for enquires: Tim Pollock, phone (03) 474 3243

Otago Settlers Museum

Arcadian Dreams

The imaginings of R A Lawson and George O’Brien in 19th Century Dunedin

Working as a draughtsman for Scottish architect Robert Lawson meant that elegant Gothic Revival buildings became prominent in the colonial watercolours of Otago painted by the Irishman George O’Brien. The Otago Settlers Museum and Hocken Library collections are richly endowed with many examples of O’Brien’s idealised landscapes of the region, including bird’s eyes view of the Otago Peninsula. These are brought together with period photographs to enable visitors to compare the ideal and the real.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Family Silver Collections and Connections

Silver is a magnet for memories. Passed down through families, organisations and institutions, silver carries its history in its many decorative forms, but also through marks, inscriptions and stories. Some objects in this exhibition tell the stories of influential people in the community, including founders of the Otago settlement such as William Cargill and the whaler Johnnie Jones. Others represent the merest traces of people’s lives in an initial on the handle of a spoon or a photograph in a locket. The pieces in Family Silver range from sentimental trinkets to examples of full-blown Victorian splendour; all have been selected from the Otago Settlers Museum collection.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Across the Ocean Waves

What was it like crossing the oceans to come here in a sailing ship? The core of this new display is an accurate recreation of the steerage quarters of an immigrant ship bound for Otago in the days of sail. Visitors are welcome to climb into a bunk or sit at the central table and imagine what life would have been like cooped up for 100 or more days at sea. Short video presentations bring the era to life. Death and disaster, fun and romance, the misery of seasickness and the excitement of arrival are all showcased. A baby dies, fighting breaks out among the single girls, and there is dancing and a stolen kisses. This is an interactive exhibit, which will seize the imagination and transport you back to the epic voyages made by Otago’s nineteenth century ancestors. Participants can climb aboard and see for themselves what the great migration was all about.

Ongoing Exhibition

On the Move: Road Transport in Otago

One hundred years ago Thomas Sullivan invented the tea bag, Charles Menches invented the ice cream cone and vehicles were becoming increasingly familiar sights on Dunedin streets. To find out more about local motoring and transportation milestones check out On the Move: Road Transport in Otago - an exhibition of vehicles, photographs and memorabilia recalling not only the dawn of motoring in Otago but also the heydays of horse-drawn coaches and drays, tramcars and cycles. Be sure not to miss a ride on the penny-farthing.

Ongoing Exhibition

The Smith Gallery

The Otago Early Settlers Museum opened in 1908 with just one room for displays. Now known as the Smith Gallery, it was a memorial to Otago’s Scottish pioneers. Stern Presbyterian faces glowered down from rows of photographic portraits amidst artefacts of daily life from Otago’s early days. Today, the Smith Gallery emphasises the importance of the Early Settlers in the story of Otago. The portraits on the walls have been rearranged in order of arrival; and a variety of furniture and other artefacts, all drawn from the pre-gold rush era, add character to this historic gallery.

Ongoing Exhibition

Otago Settlers Museum, 31 Queens Gardens, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Tim Pollock, phone (03) 474 3242

Otago Museum

Photo Lightscapes

This travelling exhibition has already shown in Switzerland and Vietnam and is brought to New Zealand with the assistance of Pro Helvetia: Arts Council of Switzerland. Photo Lightscapes consists of 80 photographs, representing 10 photographers from four different countries: Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Switzerland. The photographs in this exhibition encompass the theme of Light and Colour, displaying an intriguing blend of artificial lighting and natural landscapes that result in what can be best described as “photo-canvases”. This exhibition promises to be a mesmerising experience.

Runs Until 26 June 2005

Special Exhibitions Gallery

Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here

Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here is a unique exhibition of fantastic postcards and is a co-operative venture with MacAndrew Intermediate School and the Arts Quest Trust. An estimated 500 postcards will be on display by local, national and international artists, as well as by students from the school. Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here reveals the history of postcards and also includes items from the Otago Museum collections. The postcards will be on sale at the Museum Shop. Proceeds raised will be given to MacAndrew Intermediate School to help find art education. The Museum will also offer creative workshops and community programmes to accompany this unique exhibition.

Runs Until 10 July 2005

People of the World Gallery

Guided Tours

Take a ‘Highlights of the Museum’ guided tour and learn some inside knowledge about various aspects that the Museum has on offer and/or take a guided tour of ‘Southern Land, Southern People’ and gain a greater understanding, of the Southern region. ‘Highlights of the Museum’ guided tours are available at 11.30am and ‘Southern Land, Southern People’ guided tours are available at 3.30pm (and other times by prior arrangement).

Ongoing Service - 11.30am and 3.30pm daily

Lunchtime Music

A range of musicians will liven up the atrium with live performances each week. This is now a regular fixture but is subject to change according to function demands.

Museum Foyer, Fridays and Saturdays between 12 noon and 1.30pm

Discovery World Science Shows

These excellent shows are now run by the Museum’s Science Communicators.

Discovery World, Saturdays & Sundays at 11.00am, 1.00pm and 3.00pm

Gallery Talks

Each day, the Otago Museum Communicators present fascinating 15-minute gallery talks on objects or themes of particular interest from the Museum's galleries.

Ongoing Service, 2.00pm Daily

Search Centre

Otago Museum’s Search Centre research facility provides an inviting opportunity for visitors to engage in further research on objects or themes in the galleries of interest to them. It will also be the first stop for the identification of items members of the public bring into the Museum, a service that annually attracts a huge number of objects or specimens. Well resourced, with swift new computers, microscopes, modern journals and a great variety of new books, the Search Centre offers a variety of options for seeking further information. Set in a comfortable and relaxing environment the Search Centre is the perfect place in which to think, read , study, or research.

Ongoing Service

Search Centre Weekend Presentations

The Museum’s Search Centre Communicators have developed a series of Search Centre Weekend Presentations designed to help familiarise people with the excellent resources provided by this facility.

Ongoing Service, Weekends at 11.30am and 2.30pm

Ongoing Exhibitions

The Museum’s timbered Victorian gallery, the Animal Attic , houses an extensive collection of natural history specimens from around the world, re-displayed as they would have been in the late 1800s. A ‘museum within a museum’, this gallery is unique in New Zealand. Explore the Tangata Whenua Gallery with its impressive displays of Maori Cultural artefacts, including a stunning collection of Southern Maori material. The Pacific Culture Galleries display outstanding collections from Polynesia and Melanesia. People of the World has world archaeological treasures including ancient Greek pottery; a mummy and other fascinating artefacts from Ancient Egypt; a striking collection of swords; exquisite decorative arts from Asia and Europe and a superb array of costume and textiles. Walk the length of the giant Fin Whale in the Maritime Gallery , and then take in the intricate detail of a wealth of nautical artefacts. Come face to face with the extinct giant moa in the Extinction and Survival area and see one of the few complete moa eggs in the world.

Otago Museum, 419 Great King Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Annabelle Boelema, phone (03) 474 7474 ext 845, www.otagomuseum.govt.nz

MAY 2005

Cleveland Living Arts Centre

Arthouse - the 1995 Print Portfolio

Established in June 1993, the Arthouse was an important chapter in Dunedin’s Art history. An artist run co-operative studio, gallery and art education space; it contributed to many an early career. As a fundraising project a limited edition of 30 print portfolios were made, only 17 of which had been made available for purchase by the public. The contributing artists were: Barry Cleavin, Inge Doesburg, Irene Ferguson, Roger Hall, Ralph Hotere, Clive Humphries, Kathryn Madill, Els Nordhoof, Jo Ogier, Jenna Packer, Eion Stevens, Marilyn Webb and Dan Weldon. A full set of these prints will be on show for the first time since 1995.

Runs Until 14 May 2005

Jennifer Leyden

Jennifer Leydon presents a series of etchings inspired by and representing the icon event - the Regent 24 hour book sale.

15 - 28 May 2005

Members Show

With over 90 artists members ranging from students, new artists of all ages and established artists the Centre for the first time hosts an exhibition for members to show their latest work. This is sure to be an eclectic and entrancing mix of subject and media.

18 May - 6 June 2005

Cleveland Living Arts Centre, First Floor, Dunedin Railway Station, Dunedin.

Monday - Friday, 10.00am - 4.00pm; Saturday, 10.00am - 2.00pm

Contact for enquiries: Kari Morseth, phone (03) 477 7291

Dunedin Centre

Popov Family In Concert

A celebration of Hebraic music and dance by the internationally acclaimed Popov Family. Serguei, brilliant concert violinist and Helena, his prima ballerina wife, along with their 15-year-old daughter Elisa, present colourful solo and family group folk and classical music and dance.

2 May 2005, 7.30pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for bookings and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

The Carer written by Alan Hopgood and directed by Don Mackay .

The Carer is a play for anyone who has ever been in love. “...at times during The Carer your heart will crumble, and at times it will fill with hope and joy. It is a life-affirming experience,” Sunday Telegraph, Sydney. The Carer is a unique play filled with laughter, life and love. After delighting Australian audiences for over four years, this landmark drama comes to New Zealand. The play tells the story of George Parker and his love for his recently lost wife. Take this journey with George and enter into his world - a world touched with love, family and the perfect soul mate. With a spirited collection of memories and recollections, you will meet a family that was touched by tragedy but bonded by love. The message of this simple story is universal, and one that will be familiar to all of us. Ray Henwood, one of New Zealand’s leading actors, plays the central role. Henwood has also played roles in ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Heavenly Creatures’ and Roger Hall’s ‘Spreading Out’ and ‘Glide Time’.

4 - 6 May 2005, 8.00pm - 9.30pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Jo Mackintosh, email jo@mcphersonpromotions.com

Contact for bookings: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Dunedin Public Libraries Network

NZ Music Month:

Venture up to the first floor space and into an exciting wonderland of NZ film and music.

2 - 30 May 2005

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Discovery Tours

Take a free tour of the City Library every Tuesday and every last Saturday of the month.

3, 10, 17, 24 & 31 May 2005, 10.30am and 1.00pm. 28 May 2005, 2.00pm.

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Turn Off TV Week

A fortnight of wonderful community events staged at Blueskin Bay.

Runs Until 8 May 2005

Blueskin Bay Library, Blueskin Bay.

Contact for enquiries: Fiona Sherriff, phone (03) 474 5080

New Zealand Post Book Awards
The New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are annual awards recognising the best in New Zealand books for children and teenagers. Books are judged in four categories: Young Adult Fiction, Junior Fiction, Non Fiction and Picture Book.

9 - 17 May 2005
Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Stack Trek Tours

Go where few borrowers have gone before. Visit the City Library’s basement area and find those long lost “oldies but goodies” every last Saturday of the month.

28 May 2005, 1.00 pm

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Liz Knowles, phone (03) 474 3317

University of Otago - Lunchtime Theatre: Bite size Shows

Lunchtime Theatre is celebrating its thirty years innovation of Theatre Studies at the University of Otago and has been pleasing audiences ever since its conception. There are a huge variety of performance styles - from improvised theatre to naturalistic plays, to simply the most bizarre material encountered.

All About Hyman by Chewie Hyman and Di To

Kiwi legend Chewie Hyman stunned the world with his amazing performance skills after boldly stepping out of his training ground at Allen Hall. This beautiful documentary follows Chewie as he goes back to his turangawaewae, taking an in-depth look into the man behind the bright lights.

5 & 6 May 2005, 1.00pm

Consuming Vanessa by Kate Morris

Marriage isn’t a lifestyle it’s a disease and one that’s slowly killing Vanessa and her husband Brian. Consuming Vanessa takes a sarcastic look at “love”, marriage and the things that really matter.

12 & 13 May 2005, 1.00pm

Puppets by Paul Stephanus

A story about you.

19 & 20 May, 1.00pm

Done Eden by Phoebe Smith and Bronwyn Haines

Dun (verb): To make constant or repeated demands.

Eden (noun): a) A state of innocence and purity.

b) Any delightful place.

When there is constant demands made on your innocence - the delightful place is done…

26 & 27 May 2005, 1.00pm

Allen Hall Theatre, University of Otago, Union Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Fiona McLaughlin, phone (03) 479 8896

Larnach Castle

New Zealand Garden Trust Seminar - Going for Gold

The New Zealand Garden Trust will be holding an exciting and informative seminar at the delightful destination of Larnach Castle. The seminar will enable those interested to add value to your garden and meet with the expectations of the visitors. There will be knowledgeable and celebrity speakers, garden visits and exceptional cuisine. This is a golden opportunity for the discerning garden owner to meet with like-minded and enthusiastic garden artistes.

6 - 8 May 2005

Larnach Castle, Pukehiki, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin

Contact for bookings and enquiries: Liz Morrow, phone (09) 307 2411, fax (09) 307 2471, email lizmorrow@actrix.co.nz , or see the website at www.gardens.org.nz

Fortune Theatre

Things we do for Love by Alan Ayckbourn

Lust brings out the worst in people. Gilbert, living downstairs, is so tragically devoted to his landlady, Barbara, that he pretends to take her old clothes to the charity shop and then secretly wears them himself, while painting her naked likeness on his ceiling. Barbara, beautiful and brittle, is a high-powered executive who cares little for romance and its sticky consequences. Squeakily perky Nikki and her fiancé, hunky Hamish the oceanographer, have just moved in upstairs, making the bed springs sing. It is hatred at first sight as Barbara and Hamish spit and snarl at each other - but is the crusty, curmudgeonly spinster melting into the fray? Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the first playwright to be knighted since Noel Coward, is also one of the world’s most successful. This new comedy is a study of the effects of love; whether we can live without it, and more importantly, once we have it, the things we’ll do to keep it.

Runs Until 7 May 2005

Lulu: Drop dead, gorgeous by Peter Barnes from Frank Wedekind - a NZ premiere

Bodice-ripping Victorian gothic, this sex tragedy has it all: lust, decadence and obsession. Lulu is a beautiful, narcissistic young woman - both a sexual predator at the height of her powers and a moral innocent. A femme fatale with fatal guile, Lulu bewitches those who cannot resist her siren’s call, while the shadow of evil lurks in the background. This cautionary tale against sexual repression opens a ‘Pandora’s Box’ of social taboos. A gloriously savage exercise of comedic callousness, Lulu is a cross between a silent movie vamp and a grown-up - Lolita. Corrupted in childhood, she retaliates in maturity by exploiting and enjoying men, until the dark figure that watches in the gloom plays his destructive hand. Lashings of sex without love or commitment - don’t try this at home.

20 May - 11 June 2005

Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Lisa Scott, phone (03) 477 1695

Contact for Bookings: Box Office, phone (03) 477 8323

Blue Oyster

Emily Harris

Harris is exploring what she calls an ‘adolescent aesthetic.’ The work looks at the heightened resonance of the music, imagery and ideas when they are encountered during formative experiences. The work is torn between the contradictory impulses of embarrassed rejection of sentimental cliché and Kitsch while refusing to abandon the transformative possibilties of genuine emotional response wherever it is found. Appropriating ‘popular culture’ material from television, radio and the Internet, she then filters the images through several stages; first composing images on the computer, painting copies of these, then digitally photographing the paintings and printing them in a large glossy format. These works defined as paintings that reflect an aesthetic of the digital, ideas of authenticity and quality are both challenged in the process of copy and translation.

Runs Until 7 May 2005

Blue Oyster East side

Monica Peters - morph Observations in the Field

Observations in the Field exhibition is more about the process of creating work than it is about presenting conclusions. Drawing provides the means- fundamental stuff, direct, not being seduced by 21st century technology. Graphite directly on to walls, chalk straight on to blackboards; the works are large, ephemeral and immediate. The descriptive quality of these lines is used to depict a slice of the surrounding diversity, a cross section of the seemingly endless structural permutations of the natural world. Diagrams, the crisp didactic sort usually found in botany books, provide the initial cue. From here, the drawings are added to and subtracted from over the three-week duration of the exhibition. The residues of previous drawings are left on surfaces as scaffolding for subsequent drawings. As a series of ongoing a constantly evolving works, the decision-making process of what-should-come-next takes place within the gallery. The gallery becomes a place of action with the works-in-progress functioning as a part performance; where being present and active in the exhibition space, bridges the gap between artist and public.

Runs Until 7 May 2005

Blue Oyster West side

House Work. Curated by Danae Mossman

Artists: Regan Gentry, Emma Smith, Ros Cameron, Louise Tulett

House Work reconstructs the notion of the domestic interior through the work of four emerging Wellington artists. The work of all four will be in some way based on the notion of memory and experience, expressed via found and made objects and sound. Home is where the Art is…soft, charming and burning with irony. Framed by nostalgia that centres obliquely on domestic, family and familiar, House Work meditates on an ironic Kitsch sensibility. Offering up familiar spaces that are also uneasy with abandonment and displacement, the show can be seen like the rooms in a house, both through individual works and as a whole, and Mossman invites you to slip on your slippers and glide through the show with your cuppa and a hottie.

Runs Until 25 May 2005

Blue Oyster

Blue Oyster Birthday Show

This is an annual event where the Blue Oyster celebrates its anniversary by calling for proposals for a themed group show. Historically the shows have been themed to correspond with the kinds of gifts that people traditionally buy for married couples on their wedding anniversary, paper, cotton, leather etc which has provided the framework of a theme without being too restrictive. This year’s theme is still under construction and will be announced shortly. The purpose of the show is to throw open an opportunity for artists who for various reasons may not be part of the programme with a solo project. We are always aware as we reach the end of another year of operation that we need to remain connected with the community that we are supposedly here to serve. The opportunity to exhibit in a group show can give a sense of inclusion and personal investment to the artists who support the Blue Oyster long term by showing up and discussing the other projects we host. The birthday show openings are a real birthday celebration.

28 May - 19 June 2005

Blue Oyster Upper, Lower and Dark Side galleries

Blue Oyster Gallery, Basement, Moray Chambers, 30 Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Ali Bramwell, phone (03) 479 0197

Regent Theatre

The Pink Floyd Experience

The Pink Floyd Experience returns to New Zealand for its final NZ tour featuring their critically acclaimed stage show “The Wall”. The Experience has continued to develop and elevate the standard of this show and it returns to NZ bigger and better than before. The show also features a selection of classic Floyd songs and the sophisticated sound and light show the Experience are renowned for.

8 May 2005, 7.00pm

Contact for enquiries: Darren Whittaker, phone 021 344 252

QUEEN - It’s A Kinda Magic

After a triumphant and sold-out international tour last year, the most sensational Queen tribute ever staged is set to tour New Zealand with more special effects, more theatrics, and more Queen magic! The public demanded more of this show and Craig Pesco and his band are ready to deliver the ultimate Queen experience. Based on the 1986 Queen World Tour, QUEEN - It’s A Kinda Magic delivers the energy, costumes and showmanship of Freddie Mercury and the world’s greatest rock band, Queen, in a way that transports the audience back in time. Queen achieved 23 Top Ten Hits, 43 Top Forty Hits and every one of their albums reached the top of the album charts, making them one of the biggest bands ever to come out of the UK. In 1991 Queen came to an untimely end with the death of Freddie Mercury, one of the most loved and charismatic front men in the music business. Freddie oozed energy, stage presence and a love of rock music. QUEEN - It’s A Kinda Magic ’s Craig Pesco recreates all these traits and delivers the ultimate portrait of Freddie Mercury, leaving audiences spellbound and screaming for more by the end of the night.

9 May 2005, 8.00pm

The Regent 24-Hour Book Sale

The Regent 24 Hour Book Sale celebrates 25 years since it all began. This is New Zealand's largest sale of used books, opening the doors at 12noon on Friday 20 May and running uninterrupted for 24 hours of fun with continuous book bargains and live entertainment. All proceeds are used to develop the Regent, one of New Zealand's most beautiful old theatres.

20 May 2005, 12 noon - 21 May 2005, 12 noon

Royal New Zealand Ballet - The Peugeot Season of A Million Kisses To My Skin

Passion is palpable in the Royal New Zealand Ballet's new triple bill. With its rise and shine charm, Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto has become one of the legendary choreographer's most popular works. Revelling in the airy textures of Shostakovich's piano concerto, the performers put on a sparkling display of technical virtuosity. Riveting and ritualistic, Javier De Frutos' Milagros is set to Stravinsky's iconic Rite of Spring. The critical sensation of the Ballet's recent UK tour, the Financial Times declared Milagros a “brilliantly imagined, dazzling response to the score”. Effortlessly elegant, sublimely beautiful, David Dawson's A Million Kisses to My Skin is a lyrical extension of Bach's piano concerto. First performed by Dutch National Ballet in 2000, Dawson breathes free-flowing movement into classical ballet.

24 May 2005, 7.30pm

Contact for enquiries: George Hills, phone (04) 381 9018 or 021 848 481, email george@nzballet.org.nz .

Regent Theatre, 17 The Octagon, Dunedin

Contact for bookings and enquiries: Regent Theatre Ticketek, phone (03) 477 8597

Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Gretchen Albrecht: Paintings

This exhibition showcases a selection of evocative, richly coloured and often spectacular paintings by one of New Zealand’s leading abstractionists. This exhibition focuses on her signature hemisphere and oval works, and ranges from pieces made during Albrecht’s Frances Hodgkins residency in Dunedin in 1981 through to recent works.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs Until 8 May 2005

John Kinder’s New Zealand

Few people realise that the Reverend Dr John Kinder was the only 19th century New Zealand artist to work with both painting and photography as visual mediums. Such a combined visual talent was not only exceptional in New Zealand - it has very few 19th century international parallels. John Kinder’s New Zealand is the fist exhibition to survey Kinder’s twin achievements as an artist of paint as well as the camera.

An Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki touring exhibition.

Runs Until 8 May 2005

Hotbed: Loans, Purchases and Gifts

The word ‘collection’ suggests static objects stored in temperature-controlled rooms. This late-summer show, however, reveals the Gallery’s contemporary collection as a place of heat, bizarre beauty and unstable energy - a hotbed of growth and change. Featuring the work of Jae Hoon Lee, Bill Hammond, Seraphine Pick, 2005 Frances Hodgkins fellow Rohan Wealleans and others, Hotbed showcases art in which nature gets pushed to unnatural extremes, paint bulges and peels, and familiar objects grow minds of their own.

Runs Until 12 May 2005

Joanna Braithwaite: Wonderland

The world of Joanna Braithwaite's Wonderland is part menagerie, part bestiary, and part human zoo. Her richly brushed canvases are places where the laws of nature are calmly bent, and wonderful hybrids emerge. Snakes grow into swans, frogs rain from the sky, and humans are lofted skyward by birds and butterflies. Braithwaite paints her strange creatures with such assurance that they seem perfectly natural. In the process, she reminds us how strange 'the natural' really is.

Organised in collaboration with Christchurch Art Gallery

Runs Until 15 May 2005

Big Wall: Pip Culbert

Pip Culbert takes everything but the seams away from familiar fabric objects, and what is left provides a lot to look at and think about. In this new work, Culbert has cut apart and opened up thirty-six domestic aprons. Floating on the Big Wall, they form a strange new graphic alphabet - an array of signs and gestures that the original aprons never dreamed they contained.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Frances Hodgkins: Daughter of Dunedin

Daughter of Dunedin is the second exhibition in the gallery permanently devoted to the works of one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded artists, Frances Hodgkins. The exhibition offers the viewer an insight into the artist’s early life and work.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Ongoing exhibition

Sara Hughes: Love Me Tender

Sara Hughes brings colour and life to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s Otago Daily Times Gallery with her distinctive variations on the Paisley patterns that Scottish settlers brought to Dunedin. Cut from pre-painted sheets of sticky vinyl, Hughes’ Paisley shapes stretch and flex as if manipulated on a computer screen - nineteenth century forms refreshed by twenty-first century technology.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Ongoing Exhibition

Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 30 The Octagon, PO Box 5045, Dunedin

Contact for enquires: Tim Pollock, phone (03) 474 3243

Dunedin Botanic Gardens

HortTalks - Attracting Native Birds to Your Garden

Native trees attract native plants because they provide a year round food supply, even in the dead of winter. Birds eat their berries and flowers and leave us with the sound of their birdsong. Philip Dunn from Ribbonwood Nurseries will explore how to increase biodiversity in your own backyard.

13 May 2005

Dunedin Botanic Garden, Cnr Great King Street & Opoho Road

Contact for enquiries: Clare Fraser, phone (03) 474 9649

Otago Settlers Museum

Arcadian Dreams

The imaginings of R A Lawson and George O’Brien in 19th Century Dunedin. Working as a draughtsman for Scottish architect Robert Lawson meant that elegant Gothic Revival buildings became prominent in the colonial watercolours of Otago painted by the Irishman George O’Brien. The Otago Settlers Museum and Hocken Library collections are richly endowed with many examples of O’Brien’s idealised landscapes of the region, including bird’s eyes view of the Otago Peninsula. These are brought together with period photographs to enable visitors to compare the ideal and the real.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Family Silver Collections and Connections

Silver is a magnet for memories. Passed down through families, organisations and institutions, silver carries its history in its many decorative forms, but also through marks, inscriptions and stories. Some objects in this exhibition tell the stories of influential people in the community, including founders of the Otago settlement such as William Cargill and the whaler Johnnie Jones. Others represent the merest traces of people’s lives in an initial on the handle of a spoon or a photograph in a locket. The pieces in Family Silver range from sentimental trinkets to examples of full-blown Victorian splendour; all have been selected from the Otago Settlers Museum collection.

Runs Until 29 May 2005

Across the Ocean Waves

What was it like crossing the oceans to come here in a sailing ship? The core of this new display is an accurate recreation of the steerage quarters of an immigrant ship bound for Otago in the days of sail. Visitors are welcome to climb into a bunk or sit at the central table and imagine what life would have been like cooped up for 100 or more days at sea. Short video presentations bring the era to life. Death and disaster, fun and romance, the misery of seasickness and the excitement of arrival are all showcased. A baby dies, fighting breaks out among the single girls, and there is dancing and a stolen kisses. This is an interactive exhibit, which will seize the imagination and transport you back to the epic voyages made by Otago’s nineteenth century ancestors. Climb aboard and see for yourself what their great migration was all about.

Ongoing Exhibition

Otago Settlers Museum, 31 Queens Gardens, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Tim Pollock, phone (03) 474 3242

Otago Museum

Photo Lightscapes

This travelling exhibition has already shown in Switzerland and Vietnam and is brought to New Zealand with the assistance of Pro Helvetia: Arts Council of Switzerland. Photo Lightscapes consists of 80 photographs, representing 10 photographers from four different countries: Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Switzerland. The photographs in this exhibition encompass the theme of Light and Colour, displaying an intriguing blend of artificial lighting and natural landscapes that result in what can be best described as “photo-canvases”. This exhibition promises to be a mesmerising experience.

Runs Until 26 June 2005

Special Exhibitions Gallery

Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here

Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here is a unique exhibition of fantastic postcards and is a co-operative venture with MacAndrew Intermediate School and the Arts Quest Trust. An estimated 500 postcards will be on display by local, national and international artists, as well as by students from the school. Snail Mail - Wish You Were Here reveals the history of postcards and also includes items from the Otago Museum collections. The postcards will be on sale at the Museum Shop. Proceeds raised will be given to MacAndrew Intermediate School to help find art education. The Museum will also offer creative workshops and community programmes to accompany this unique exhibition.

Runs Until 10 July 2005

People of the World Gallery

Guided Tours

Take a ‘Highlights of the Museum’ guided tour and learn some inside knowledge about various aspects that the Museum has on offer and/or take a guided tour of ‘Southern Land, Southern People’ and gain a greater understanding, of the Southern region. ‘Highlights of the Museum’ guided tours are available at 11.30am and ‘Southern Land, Southern People’ guided tours are available at 3.30pm (and other times by prior arrangement).

Ongoing Service - 11.30am and 3.30pm daily

Lunchtime Music

A range of musicians will liven up the atrium with live performances each week. This is now a regular fixture but is subject to change according to function demands.

Museum Foyer, Fridays and Saturdays between 12 noon and 1.30pm

Discovery World Science Shows

These excellent shows are now run by the Museum’s Science Communicators.

Discovery World, Saturdays & Sundays at 11.00am, 1.00pm and 3.00pm

Gallery Talks

Each day, the Otago Museum Communicators present fascinating 15-minute gallery talks on objects or themes of particular interest from the Museum's galleries.

Ongoing Service, 2.00pm Daily

Search Centre

Otago Museum’s Search Centre research facility provides an inviting opportunity for visitors to engage in further research on objects or themes in the galleries of interest to them. It will also be the first stop for the identification of items members of the public bring into the Museum, a service that annually attracts a huge number of objects or specimens. Well resourced, with swift new computers, microscopes, modern journals and a great variety of new books, the Search Centre offers a variety of options for seeking further information. Set in a comfortable and relaxing environment the Search Centre is the perfect place in which to think, read , study, or research.

Ongoing Service

Search Centre Weekend Presentations

The Museum’s Search Centre Communicators have developed a series of Search Centre Weekend Presentations designed to help familiarise people with the excellent resources provided by this facility.

Ongoing Service, Weekends at 11.30am and 2.30pm

Ongoing Exhibitions

The Museum’s timbered Victorian gallery, the Animal Attic , houses an extensive collection of natural history specimens from around the world, re-displayed as they would have been in the late 1800s. A ‘museum within a museum’, this gallery is unique in New Zealand. Explore the Tangata Whenua Gallery with its impressive displays of Maori Cultural artefacts, including a stunning collection of Southern Maori material. The Pacific Culture Galleries display outstanding collections from Polynesia and Melanesia. People of the World has world archaeological treasures including ancient Greek pottery; a mummy and other fascinating artefacts from Ancient Egypt; a striking collection of swords; exquisite decorative arts from Asia and Europe and a superb array of costume and textiles. Walk the length of the giant Fin Whale in the Maritime Gallery , and then take in the intricate detail of a wealth of nautical artefacts. Come face to face with the extinct giant moa in the Extinction and Survival area and see one of the few complete moa eggs in the world.

Otago Museum, 419 Great King Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Annabelle Boelema, phone (03) 474 7474 ext 845, www.otagomuseum.govt.nz

Milford Galleries - Glass Invitational NZ

The Glass Invitational NZ curated by Stephen Higginson is the premier glass exhibition in New Zealand surveying major achievement and innovation of the preceding two years. NZ art glass is internationally renowned, distinctive and imbued with character. One of the significant strengths is revealed by its variety: the geometric abstract concerns of Borrella, the layered gestural forms of Amsel, the devotional vase of Robinson, the pan-Pacific language of Siddell's necklaces contrast sharply with the domestic narrative of Fairclough and McClure's sophisticated remodelling of everyday objects. Featured artists in this exhibition include, Claudia Borrella, Galia Amsel, Ann Robinson, Emily Siddell, Wendy Fairclough and Elizabeth McClure with other work by Garry Nash, Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams.

The Glass Invitational NZ exhibition in Dunedin is part of a national tour

Runs Until 31 May 2005

Milford Galleries Dunedin, 18 Dowling Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Karen Trebilcock, phone (03) 477 8275

Hocken Library

Das Endeavour: sculpture by Evan Jones with Art from Captain Cooks Voyages curated by Anne Harlow

An installation of figurative sculpture and artefacts in which Evan Jones (completing his Master of Fine Arts) engages ideas associated with the museum, colonial heroism and the collection of heritage. Insignificant details in history are distorted and re-presented by Jones as fact, with particular reference drawn to James Cook, Bernini and Wedgwood. Painstakingly crafted and Neo-classical in style - yet made from the hobbyist material “Das” (an air-hardening polymer clay) - Jones’ work in humorous and intimate. These works are combined with prints, paintings and books from the Hocken Collections related to Captain Cooks voyaging in the Pacific.

Runs Until 18 June 2005

Hocken Library, cnr Anzac Avenue & Parry Street, Dunedin

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