Dunedin Arts and Cultural Events February-March

MEDIA RELEASE

Issue date: 31 January 2006

Dunedin, New Zealand

Dunedin Arts and Cultural Events

February 2006 to March 2006

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.

February 2006

Dunedin Public Libraries Network

Saucy Readings - Bombshells by Joanna Murray-Smith

Join in a celebration of all things feminine and fabulous. Jacqueline Nairn stars in a one-woman show about bombshells that happen in women's lives - from an uncertain bride-to-be to a frantic mother and older widow. An all-singing, all-dancing, roller coaster ride that you will never forget. Catch a 20-minute live reading of the Fortune Theatre's NZ premiere of Bombshells at the Dunedin City Library, followed by an accompanying morning tea.

2 February 2006, 10:30am

Love Around the World

A special Natural History New Zealand free film screening especially for Valentine's Day… The search for love may involve timeless traditions of ancient cultures, or trans-global correspondence via the latest technology. Meet romantic hopefuls from the wide-open spaces of Alaska and Australia, remote Papua New Guinea and the heart of cosmopolitan London, and learn how they are trying to find their soul mates in the modern world.

14 February 2006, 10.30am and 5.45pm

4th Floor, Dunedin City Library

Discovery Tours

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

Tuesdays, 10.30am and 1.00pm. Last Saturday of the month, 2.00pm.

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.

Last Saturday of the month, 1.00pm

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Liz Knowles, phone (03) 474 3317, email lknowles@dcc.govt.nz

DCC Events

Dunedin Summer Festival Opening

Mayor Chin will officially open this year’s 52nd annual Dunedin Summer Festival, followed by the entertaining and energetic band The Beat Girls. The Festival runs for over a month and features events such as the Octagon Market Day and Thieves Alley, Asian/Chinese New Year’s Eve Celebrations, Octagonal Day Pipe Band Contest, and the Southern Festival of Speed Street Race.

4 February - 26 March 2006

Octagon Market Day and Thieves Alley

The annual Octagon Market Day and Thieves Alley is a huge favourite in the South Island and Dunedin’s biggest market day of the year. Look over the interesting, creative and colourful stalls, which attract thousands of customers. Bargains, food and fun galore to be had!

25 February 2005, 10.00am

The Octagon, Dunedin

DCC Events, 50 The Octagon, Dunedin

For more information check out the website: www.CityofDunedin.com

Contact for enquiries: Marilyn Anderson, phone (03) 474 3456 or email events@dcc.govt.nz

Milford Galleries Dunedin

Michael Hight: Taieri

After six days cycling the Otago Rail Trail through the landscapes of the Ida Valley, the Manitoto and Middlemarch, Michael Hight had enough material for a new body of work. He completed the trip in the autumn, when the light was good but low on the horizon, creating sharp details and vivid colours. It was still the honey season, with hives stacked high, ready to be harvested. Michael Hight’s beehives have been described as architectural, standing like ancient monuments, representative of creatures or people, brooding on the landscape… the list goes on. These inhabitants of the New Zealand scenery are taken for granted by most of us (only the hum of bees when we get close make us aware that they are not as benign as they appear), but Hight has elevated their status and placed them in the foreground of his outstanding works. Michael Hight was born in Stratford in Taranaki in 1961 and graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Waikato in 1982. Between 1984 and 1987 he travelled and also lived and painted in London. He has regularly exhibited since 1984 and has been a full time artist since 2001. He has received several QEII grants and his work is held in many New Zealand collections.

4 - 23 February 2006

Mike Petre: New Works

Mike Petre describes his talent by saying “My work is a personal response to memory and experiences associated with spending a large part of my life immersed in rural environments. My paintings are not an attempt to elevate, idealize, or romanticize the rural, but rather a means of exploring the notion of what it is, and what it may mean to be a 'local', and developing a visual language to convey this. New Zealand has a rich and varied history of landscape painting yet I feel little has been attempted within the visual arts to explore issues of localized rural experience and landscape.” Mike Petre was born in rural King Country in 1964 and graduated with a Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University in 1986. He spent several years working on farms in New Zealand and abroad including the UK and Israel. In 1994 Petre graduated with a Bachelor of Design, Carrington Polytechnic and has since exhibited throughout New Zealand. He was a finalist in three Wallace Art Awards, and also in three Art Waikato National Art Awards.

25 February - 16 March 2006

John Parker: Superstrata

John Parker, well known for his severe white glazed bowls, bottles and orbs, has temporarily left his potters wheel. His new works are made by piping clay in threads to build up three-dimensional architectural structures. Looking like something between cake icing and stalactites, these shapes appear organic but also engineered, crossing borders between what we know and what we don’t. John Parker was born in Auckland in 1947 and lives in Waitakere. He graduated from Auckland Teachers Training College in 1970 and in 1975 completed a Masters degree from the Royal College of Art in London. Parker has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally with his work in major public, private and corporate collections throughout New Zealand and abroad including the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney and the New Zealand Embassies in Tokyo and Jakarta. Parker has obtained numerous awards and residencies during his career and was most recently appointed to the Creative NZ Craft/Object Art Fellowship committee.

25 February - 16 March 2006

Milford Galleries Dunedin, 18 Dowling Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Karen Trebilcock, phone (03) 477 8275, email karen@milfordhouse.co.nz

Otago Museum

Rediscover China

Leading Chinese photographers have captured an essence of the cultural existence that is China. Refulgent Civilisation, Reform and Opening Up and Peace and Development themes fuse in the celebration of a rich traditional history, vivacious present and promising future for this influential nation.

4 February - 1 April 2006

ANZANG (Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea) -

Nature and Landscape Photographer of the Year

ANZANG is a competition established in 2004 and held annually which invites amateur and professional photographers, of any age or nationality, to enter photographs of flora, fauna and wilderness landscape taken in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea (countries and regions all joined within the great southern continent of Gondwana Land over fifty million years ago). Sixty-three winning and highly commended photographs were chosen by the judges to make up this travelling exhibition. Four judges, all professional photographers, chose the winning and highly commended photographs from 620 entries that capture the remarkable diversity of the nature and landscape of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea.

11 February - 26 March 2006

Scarfies: Otago Student Culture

No other city in New Zealand has a student culture as strong, vibrant and distinctive as that found in Dunedin, the home of the Scarfie. The Otago Museum is excited to announce the imminent arrival of Scarfies: Otago Student Culture. This exhibition promises to blend humour, politics, freezing flats and scholarship, illuminating the icons of this unique student lifestyle. Through this exhibition, past and present students can commemorate the long traditions that have been passed from one generation to another since the foundation of the University in 1869. The exhibition is also an opportunity for greater Otago to celebrate the richness and creativity that the student body brings to our special city. Scarfies: Otago Student Culture will be on display in the People of the World Gallery.

18 February to 2 July 2006

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

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 & Saturdays between 12 noon & 1.30pm

Discovery World - Science with a Difference!

Experience heaps of hands-on science at its best in Otago Museum's interactive science centre, Discovery World. There's so much cool stuff that you won't know where to start! If you love getting active you can engage yourself with the new IBM TryScience Kiosk, challenge your friends to a game of air hockey or table soccer, try to sound the alarm on the Big Red Fire Engine, inflate a hot air balloon, warp yourself with the trick mirror, stomp out a tune on the giant foot piano or test your skills with our tricky puzzles. And if you have a fondness for animals you can visit the fishy enclosure of the Discovery World Aquarium on your way to our frogs, geckos and red-eared terrapins. You can check out our furry little friends - the rabbit, guinea pig and mice, and if you're brave enough you can take a peek at our creepy crawly tarantulas! But wait, that's not all - there's also our special exhibition with even more exciting and fun things to do! It's changing all the time, bringing you great new experiences from around New Zealand and overseas. So, make sure you keep an eye out for our latest show, and you'll be in for a new adventure all over again. With so much to do in Discovery World you'll want to spend all day and all night there - and guess what? You can - that's right, we have sleepovers right here in the science centre!

Ongoing Service

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 & 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 & 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

Open 7 Days, 10.00am - 5.00pm

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

Otago Art Society

Demonstration Day

This annual Dunedin Summer Festival event includes 12 artists demonstrating their skills with a variety of mediums and techniques.

5 February 2006, 1.00pm - 4.00pm

Otago Art Society Rooms

Annual Festival Exhibition and Streetscapes Awards

12 - 26 February 2006

Gallery hours: Weekdays - 12.00pm - 4.00pm and Weekends - 1.00pm - 4.00pm

Shona McFarlane Gallery

Plaza Exhibition

All artists are invited to bring original 2 dimensional works to this popular outdoor event. This is a fun day and a great opportunity for artists to show their work in public with an opportunity for would-be buyers to stay and chat with the artists.

23 February 2006, 8.00am - 5.00pm

Library Plaza

Otago Art Society, Corner Great King and Albany Streets, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Lois Lawn, phone (03) 453 4448

TOWER New Zealand Youth Choir - Dunedin Concert

The internationally acclaimed TOWER New Zealand Youth Choir is coming to Dunedin in February 2006. This choir brings together members from the award-winning 2004 European Tour choir with new members auditioned from around the country in December 2004. The choir includes 11 members based in Dunedin. TOWER New Zealand Youth Choir’s Artistic Director, Dr Karen Grylls, will conduct the 52-voice choir and the concert will feature works by New Zealand and international composers. The concert is part of the choir’s tour to Dunedin, Central Otago and Invercargill. The TOWER New Zealand Youth Choir was created to promote choral singing of the highest standard among young New Zealanders. Members of the choir are drawn from diverse backgrounds and all regions of the country. In its 26-year existence the choir has achieved many awards and accolades, including the ‘Grand Prix’ in Slovakia and ‘Choir of the World’ award at the International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales in 1999. Most recently, in July 2004, the choir received highest marks in several categories at the 43rd International Choral Competition in Gorizia, Italy. Keep an eye on the website www.youthchoir.org.nz for further details.

7 February 2006, 6.00pm

Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Contact for enquiries: Emma Dowdle, phone (04) 802 4047 or emma@nzyc.co.nz

Anna and John Caselberg Charitable Trust - Launch

"In Broad Bay Dunedin there is a cottage nestled in a magic corner of Otago Harbour, which played a vital part in the flowering of New Zealand art and literature during the 20th century. The cottage, on the edge of Yellow Head, and the neighbouring property, played host to the likes of McCahon, Frame, Brasch, Sargeson, Mason, to name but a few. Soon we hope it will once again become an important part of the of New Zealand arts and culture for a new generation; a creative place to stay and create wonderful art and literature... and uphold the rich creative spirit that resides here..." says Peter Hayden, Chairperson of the Anna and John Caselberg Charitable Trust. The Anna and John Caselberg Charitable Trust has been formed to purchase the water side home of the late John Caselberg, and his painter wife Anna. John Caselberg was Burns Fellow at the University of Otago in 1961, and was a friend and collaborator of Colin McCahon. McCahon used Caselberg’s writing for many of his paintings, including the Wake series. Anna was the daughter of artist Sir Tosswill Woolaston, and was a major painter in her own right, showing and exhibiting her work. The Trust has been established to purchase the property, and then raise funds to host residencies for both writers and artists. "I believe that the combination of literature and the visual arts, combined with the cultural history associated with this tiny part of the Otago Peninsula, make this project very special" Hayden adds. It is hoped that the residencies will bring artists and writers of international and national significance into the heart of the Peninsula and Dunedin community. The Anna and John Caselberg Charitable Trust will be formally launched on Friday 10th February, accompanied by an exhibition of Anna Caselberg’s paintings, and readings of John Caselberg’s work. People will be able to subscribe to the Trust as members, and will be invited to attend functions and events throughout the year to raise funds for the Trust.

10 February 2006, 5.30pm - Launch

13 - 16 February 2006, 10.30am - 4.00pm - Exhibition

Salisbury House Gallery, 104 Bond Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Robert West, phone (03) 478 0833 or 025 608 0641

Sammy’s Entertainment - Bonnie Prince Billy

Alternative country folk songsmith Bonnie Prince Billy, alias Will Oldham, has undergone several incarnations. After establishing himself under different names (Palace Brothers, Palace Music), he is back with his band on a new opus, “Superwolf”. Born in Kentucky, he has taken part in many projects since his 1992 debut. In 1998 he put out ³Black Dissimulation² under the name Bonnie Prince Billy. Then came six albums and three singles, including the beautiful ³Greatest Palace Music² on which he reworked earlier songs. He enjoys collaborating with other musicians, including his brothers. His latest album is a fine example - he wrote the lyrics and Matt Sweeney composed the music. The latter adds the finishing touch that highlights his powerful, melancholic words. It goes without saying that Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and his accompanying musicians are eagerly awaited for a concert that promises to be authentic and full of emotion.

10 February 2006, 8.00pm

Sammy’s Entertainment Venue, 65 Crawford Street

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

Fortune Theatre - Bombshells - NZ Premiere

Six explosive women on the edge. Morphing from an uncertain bride-to-be to a frantic mother, from an older widow who rediscovers one of life's pleasures to a teen at her school talent show to an aging diva, this play is about the bombshells that happen in women's lives. Join us for a celebration of all things feminine and fabulous. Author Joanna Murray-Smith (Honour) has found a way of penetrating the calm exterior of women's existence and finding what she calls “their inner besieged lives, the wilderness of the feminine spirit, the wildly volatile territories: erotic, fearful, desperate, cunning.” This is a one-woman show starring Jacqueline Nairn, which certainly packs a punch in an all-singing, all-dancing, roller-coaster ride. So good, so truthful and acted with such aplomb you'll forget there is only one woman on stage.

10 February - 4 March 2006

Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin

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

Contact for bookings: Box Office, phone (03) 477 8323 or online www.fortunetheatre.co.nz

Salisbury House Gallery

Launch of the Anna and John Caselberg Trust

The launch of the Anna and John Caselberg Trust will feature an auction of one of Anna Caselberg's Peninsula works donated by Mr Harwicke Knight.

13 - 16 February 2006, 10.00am - 4.00pm

Salisbury House Gallery, 104 Bond Street, Dunedin

Kirsten Lovelock: Truth Loves To Go Naked

Artist Kirsten Lovelock presents an exhibition of personal art with works for sale.

20 February - 3 March 2006, 10.00am - 4.00pm

Salisbury House Gallery, 104 Bond Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Peter Booth, phone 021 1039 048, salisburybooks@mac.com or www.salisburyhousegallery.com

Cleveland Living Arts Centre

Bo Yi Pekghee Gan - To live is to love

“The one way to paint Spirit is beauty. The one way to illustrate mind is kindness. The one way to portray body is true”. Bo Yi presents a collection of recent paintings.

Runs until 11 February 2006

Chinese Art for the New Year

Local contemporary artists of Chinese heritage display work ranging from esoteric paintings to edgy digital animation in a celebration of the contemporary culture of Chinese artists living and working locally. Concept drawings for the city’s Chinese Gardens will also be on display; timed to coincide with Chinese New Year.

Runs until 11 February 2006

Large Art
Over 25 large (most over 2m square, or over 1m in height for 3D) works are displayed in the spacious high ceiling historic rooms of the Cleveland Living Art Centre. Artists include Peter Cleverley, Clair Beynon, Marilyn Webb, Janet de Wagt, Judith Lane Ewing, Liz Abott, Elizabeth Manson, David Teata, James York, Inge Doesburg, James Robinson, Pete Wheeler, Angela Lyon, Sam Foley and Philp James Frost.

17 February - 4 March 2006

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

Blue Oyster Gallery

Grad Show

The Grad Show is an annual event, which showcases selected graduates from the Fine Arts programme at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art. The works selected represent a range of media, but the criteria for choosing them is the professionalism of the work as well as the strong identity of the artist. Exhibiting artists include Esther Curnow, Leah Doesburg, Rachel Easting, Dyana Grey, Wendy Keynon, Tina Lim, Jemma Poole, Katrina Thompson, and Nerina Ward.

Runs until 11 February 2006

Dark Side, Upper Gallery and Lower Gallery

Leagh Houghton

Reflecting an ongoing interest in architecture and ornamentation, Houghton’s project engages with the surfaces of buildings. The processes of investigating, copying, repeating, degrading and reconstructing surface qualities are integral to the work. She takes copies of various architectural features in latex, focussing on old domestic fittings and buildings in a way that is both nostalgic and archaeological. These large flaccid casts are intended to interrogate the object-ness of the original and to stand in for it in the gallery context. Other textural investigations into traditional woodblock wallpaper that has been translated into a stencil pattern and Houghton intends to recreate the pattern directly on the gallery wall using cake icing. Both elements of the work are engaged with traditionally curatorial ideas of display and preservation and are also means of working with ideas of production and loss.

14 February - 4 March 2006

Upper Gallery

Ruth Cleland - Sunny Days

Cleland is interested in the details of the everyday that may be familiar, overlooked or forgotten; the grittiness of a concrete block wall, the play of light and shadow in a room, the patterns on worn out-of-date carpet, the disused fluorescent light tube hanging above. Her current project involves photographing new suburban developments in Mosgiel and Hamilton and translating these images into a series of closely observed painting and drawings. She is interested in the uniformity of these areas and the newness and great speed of their production, not only do all the houses look the same but also the streets, the paving, the rows of neatly planted trees and the street lamps. Within the apparent sameness of suburbia are the uniqueness of individually lived rhythms and routines. The works in Sunny Days are observations that explore the everyday.

14 February - 4 March 2006

Lower Gallery

Fiona Connor & Margot Didsbury - Drifting Observatories

Drifting Observatories is a curatorial project conceived by Fiona Connor and Margot Didsbury, focusing on overseas links within 1 or 2 degrees of separation. The project is an investigation on a global scale at an individual level. Fifteen disposable cameras were sent to people covering all the continents with one stipulation being they had to use the cameras (27 exposures) from the 7th to the 14th of November 2005. Connor and Didsbury have focused on an inclusive system where the people asked were not necessarily practising artists. The participants’ selection reveals various environs imbued with personal values and what they think we, the audience, want to see. There is a possibility for the cameras to function as a direct feed or portal from each person. By using film, this allows for an unedited document enabling the entire process to be transparent. Drifting Observatories is made up of the following participants; Doody, Janie Coy, Renate Dus, Mark Black, Shao Ying, Angus Kerr, Ollie Griffen, Atsushi Koyama, Colin Kerr, Brita Urstad-Toft, Jim Selway, Dorota Goetzen, Adrian Carnegie, Patricia Corr, Humphrey Glennie, and Celia Sak Sak.

14 February - 4 March 2006

Dark Side Gallery

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

Contact for enquiries: Ali Bramwell, phone (03) 479 0197, blueoyster@blueoyster.org.nz

Dunedin Public Art Gallery - Exhibitions

Jeffrey Harris - The Melbourne Drawings

The first New Zealand showing of a major new acquisition. Made by an artist famed for his pencil drawings, this 32-part series is a visual story of love and separation, a whirlwind of graphic invention. The series, made in 1986, opens with drawings that recall Harris’s fine-lined 1970s works. The closing images, stark and gestural, anticipate the bold strokes of his abstract drawings from the 1990s.

11 February - 4 June 2006

Scott McFarlane - Eighty-five Per Cent Reality

Shards of ancient pots serve as clues for archaeologists as they piece together past civilizations, but the time and place glimpsed in Scott McFarlane’s wall full of shards is recognisably Otago in 2005. Using the ancient art form of painted pottery to present signs of twenty-first century life, McFarlane suggests how the present might look from the vantage point of the future - a museum display of enigmatic fragments.

Runs until 12 February 2006

Miyabi: Japanese Masterworks from Dunedin Collections

Drawing on treasures from the collections of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Olveston and the Otago Museum, this fascinating exhibition explores key aspects of traditional Japanese art and culture, including exquisite ceramics, woodblock prints, lacquerware, carved netsuke and lavishly ornamented weapons. Curated by Shuzo Tsuchiya, Director of the Otaru Museum, this is the most comprehensive exhibition of Japanese artifacts ever presented in Dunedin.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Supported by Museums Aotearoa and the Asia New Zealand Foundation

Runs until 20 March 2006

Michael Reed - Cultural Vulture

Flashes and fragments of island life pour down nine immense paper scrolls in Michael Reed’s work for the Big Wall. Fascinated by a Rarotongan god stick in the collection of the Canterbury Museum and the cultural exchanges that took it there, Reed has created a work exploring the look of life on Rarotonga amidst a torrent of tourists.

Runs until 9 April 2006

Femininity Defined - Frances Hodgkins’ Images of Women

At the beginning of what would become a very unusual career, Frances Hodgkins painted women at work. Travelling to Europe, she replaced the servant girls, good wives and happy mothers of Dunedin with French and Italian orange sellers and farm workers. Returning to New Zealand, she showed her sophistication and awareness of the taste for exotic and fascinating females with a hint of the harem and the fashion for fans.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs until 16 April 2006

The Amazing Face: Four Centuries of Portraits from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Through portraits as varied as Sir Joshua Reynolds' painting of the well-born but illegitimate Maria, Countess Waldegrave, CF Goldie's All 'e same t'e Pakeha, Raymond Ching's Rebecca and the Music Student and a selection of contemporary photographs, The Amazing Face traces some of the major trends and changes in portraiture over more than four hundred years and examines a few curiosities along the way.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs until 28 May 2006

Handboek - Ans Westra Photographs

Ans Westra is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated photographers, with a career spanning almost 50 years. She is known particularly for her photographs of Mäori, the 1970s counterculture and protest action in general. Handboek is a large-scale survey exhibition of her work.

18 February - 15 May 2006

Dunedin Public Art Gallery - Visitor Programmes

Floortalk: Hayden Chisholm - German-based New Zealand musician, composer and multi-media installation artist Hayden Chisholm presents a talk about his collaborative work with Rebecca Horn, including recent site-specific installations.

Hayden Chisholm’s visit kindly supported by Germany’s Institut for Foreign Affairs, IFA, and the Goethe Institut.

2 February 2006, 6.30pm

Samurai Saturday - Yoji Yamada’s Twilight Samurai (M, 129 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.)

4 February 2006, 3.00pm

Samurai Saturday - Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai I, the first episode in this samurai trilogy based on the true story of legendary 17th-Century swordsman Musashi Miyamoto. (PG, 93 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.)

11 February 2006, 3.00pm

Kanadehon Chushingura - The Story of the 47 Loyal Ronin; a gripping tale of betrayal, violence and revenge - A lecture by David Bell, Head of Department for Art Education at Dunedin College of Education.

12 February 2006, 3.00pm

Artist Tour - Join artist Ans Westra and curator Luit Beiringa for a tour of the exhibition Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs.

18 February 2006, 1.00pm

Samurai Saturday - Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai II; Duel at Ichijoji Temple, the second episode in this trilogy about swordsman Musashi Miyamoto. (PG, 99 minutes, Japanese with English sub-titles.)

18 February 2006, 3.00pm

Lecture - Textile expert Margery Blackman presents a lecture titled The Japanese Textiles Collected by the Theomins and the de Beers in Dunedin Collections.

19 February 2006, 3.00pm

Samurai Saturday - Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai III; Duel at Ganryu Island, the third episode in this trilogy about Musashi Miyamoto. (M, 105 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.)

25 February 2006, 3.00pm

Historic and Contemporary Netsuke from a New Zealand and International Perspective - An illustrated talk by artist and tutor Owen Mapp. Examples of Mapp’s work are held in royal and museum collections in Japan and in New Zealand and American collections. (Netsuke are small decorative toggles.)

26 February 2006, 3.00pm

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

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

Contact for Visitor Programme enquiries: Robyn Notman, phone (03) 474 3258

Otago University Students’ Association - The Hitchhikers’ Guide to Orientation 2006

Orientation begins on 17 February and is the single biggest festival on the student calendar. It is an annual event organised by OUSA, welcoming to Otago University both new students (around 3,750) and those returning for another year (around 12,000). The festival takes place over two weeks and includes a diverse range of activities from music, comedy, hypnotism, competitions, treasure hunts, market days, togas, swimming sports, clubs days and inter hall competitions. Orientation in Otago has grown tremendously over the last few years. The number of students attending has doubled and this year will attract acts such as The Bomfunk MCs with P-Money and Minuit, Rhombus, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Katchafire and Concord Dawn. If you miss Orientation, you will miss the whole point of the Otago Experience. You've all seen news items of life in Dunedin and now it’s time to experience what being a scarfie is all about!

17 February - 3 March 2006

Contact for enquiries: Rob McCann, phone 03 479 5334 or email social.activities@ousa.org.nz

Contact for bookings: Otago University Students' Association, phone (03) 479 5332

Southern Sinfonia - Last Night of the Proms

Southern Sinfonia’s annual Last Night of the Proms is always a highlight of the Dunedin calendar, and 2006 looks set to be no exception! A celebration of both English tradition and the Dunedin spirit, the 2006 Proms will also mark a very special occasion for the Sinfonia - its 40th Birthday. So, alongside Proms favourites including Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia, and Auld Lang Syne the programme will feature a selection of works performed at the Orchestra’s inaugural concert in 1966. Popular singer Deborah Wai Kapohe will return to lead the charge from the stage, conductor is Peter Adams, and the University of Otago’s top music performance student pianist Afra Su will have the opportunity to showcase her talent in the public arena. The night will also feature local personality Rodney Bryant as MC. So dig out your Sunday best, and warm up those vocal chords. The 2006 Last Night of the Proms is bound to be a night to remember! Patrons are also invited to attend the Proms after-concert function, held in celebration of the Sinfonia’s 40th Anniversary where long-serving players will be recognised for their commitment to the Orchestra.

18 February 2006, 7.30pm

Dunedin Town Hall, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Katie Elwood, phone 477 5623, email sinfonia@earthlight.co.nz, or visit www.southernsinfonia.org

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

Otago Settlers Museum - Exhibitions

Dunedin’s War: The Wartime experiences of Dunedin People 1939-1945

On 15 August 1945 the greatest armed conflict in history finally came to an end. For six long years the world had been convulsed by war. Tens of millions of people had died. Vast areas were devastated, entire countries in ruins. It might seem that Dunedin was far away from the battlefields. Yet it too had been vitally involved in the war from the first days to the last. As part of a worldwide British Empire New Zealanders had stood alongside the ‘Mother Country’ in its hour of need. Thousands of Dunedin men and women served - on land, by sea and in the air - and in every theatre of war. Those at home played their part too. The city’s whole economic and social life became part of a massive national war effort. This exhibition is a tribute to the wartime generation whose ranks are now thinning. It commemorates especially over 900 Dunedin citizens who went to war but never returned. “They gave their tomorrow to give us our today”.

Runs until 19 February 2006

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

Appliance Emporium: Housekeeping Made Easy

Whenever you start to grumble about doing the chores, spare a thought for how housekeeping was conducted in the old days. There were no washing machines to load, set and forget. No one-touch microwave cooking. Ironing likewise was a dreaded chore that involved hours of intensive effort. This exhibition takes a look at some of the housekeeping devices used by Victorian housekeepers and the introduction in the mid-twentieth century of some of those labour-saving devices we now take for granted.

An Otago Settlers Museum exhibition

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 - Visitor Programmes

The Current Role of the New Zealand Defence Force - A representative of the NZ Defence Force will explain the role developments from those portrayed in the exhibition Dunedin’s War: The Wartime Experiences of Dunedin People 1939- 1945.

1 February 2006, 5.30pm

Stars not Shadows - Panache presents NZ women’s World War 2 experiences in song, words and music.

8 February 2006, 6.00pm

Walking Tour - Women of Dunedin

Enjoy a guided walking tour with Dr Dorothy Page that allows visitors to enter into the lives of some of the women of Dunedin’s past; the wealthy and poor, respectable and disreputable.

12 February 2006, 2.00pm

Contact for bookings: Otago Settlers Museum, phone (03) 474 2728

Dunedin RSA Choir Performance - Join in hearty singing of some 1940s tunes and a last chance to see the exhibition Dunedin’s War.

17 February 2006, 6.30pm

Walking Tour - Dunedin’s Historic Hotels

Dunedin’s hotels were much more than just a place to drink. This stroll of discovery guided by Mr Paul Aubin includes refreshments at one of our historic establishments.

21 February 2006, 2.00pm

Contact for bookings: Otago Settlers Museum, phone (03) 474 2728

Walk The Inner City

An experienced guide will takes visitors on a 90-minute stroll while experiencing the character, history and beauty of Dunedin, New Zealand’s first great city. Enjoy this wonderful insight into Dunedin’s architectural and social past.

Ongoing Service, 11.00am weekdays

Visitor Information Centre, The Octagon, Dunedin

Introductory Tours of the Museum

Experience a guided tour of the Otago Settlers Museum. Each tour lasts approximately 30 minutes.

Ongoing Service, 11.00am weekdays (except public holidays)

Otago Settlers Museum, 31 Queens Gardens, Dunedin, New Zealand

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

Contact for Visitor Programme enquiries: John Ingram, phone (03) 474 2728

Regent Theatre

Open Day

The Regent Theatre will be opened to the public for the annual Regent Theatre Open Day. Members of the Otago Theatre Trust will be on hand to conduct guided tours around the theatre showing all the areas not usually seen including back stage, dressing rooms and the workings of the Regent 24 Hour Book Sale.

25 February 2006, 10.00am to 3.00pm

Ardijah

Featuring the soulful vocals of Betty-Anne (winner of the NZ Music - Best Female Vocalist Award 1999) and the equally dynamic Ardijah Players. This well established band is a NZ icon embarking on their very first national theatre tour of 18 venues.

27 February 2006, 8.00pm

Regent Theatre, 17 The Octagon, Dunedin

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

Dunedin Botanic Garden - Explorer Tours

Take an Explorer Tour around the Dunedin Botanic Garden’s Rose Garden and Herbaceous Borders.

25 February 2006, 2.00pm - 3.00pm

Dunedin Botanic Garden, Information Centre, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Clare Fraser, phone (03) 474 5019

Westpac Mayfair Theatre - Brio Quartet

“Wellington’s BRIO vocal quartet is a youthful, spirited group who enjoy performing together, and project that enjoyment very engagingly” according to Lindis Taylor, Dominion Post critic and editor of NZ Opera News. The singers together with their pianist are travelling to Dunedin to take part in this year’s Summer Festival and will perform two concerts in the Westpac Mayfair Theatre on Saturday 25th February and Sunday 26th February. Their programme has been chosen from the works of three composers: Mozart, Verdi and Bernstein and include well known and popular numbers from “The Marriage of Figaro (Act 1)”, “Rigoletto”, “Candide” and “West Side Story”. BRIO was formed in 2003 and is unique in Wellington as its only operatic quartet. The impetus to form an operatic quartet came from the enjoyment that three of the singers experienced when performing with the boutique opera group Pocket Opera. When Pocket Opera went into recess they were driven to start their own group. Janey MacKenzie (soprano), Jody Orgias (mezzo), John Beaglehole (tenor) and Justin Pearce (bass-baritone) are the four singers who make up BRIO and each has had extensive experience ranging from operatic roles and solo oratorio work to ensemble singing. Robyn Jaquiery is the groups’ excellent and sympathetic pianist.

25 February, 8.00pm and 26 February 2006, 2.00pm

Westpac Mayfair Theatre, 100 King Edward Street, Dunedin

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

Hocken Collections - Rohan Wealleans: Frances Hodgkins Fellow

Paintings, sculptures and a video installation by the 2005 Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago.

Runs until 17 March 2006

Hocken Collections, University of Otago, 90 Anzac Avenue, Dunedin

Weekdays 9.30am - 5.00pm, Saturdays 9.00am - 12.00pm

Contact for enquiries: Dr Anna Petersen, phone (03) 479 8870 or anna.petersen@library.otago.ac.nz

March 2006

New Zealand International Science Festival
Café Scientific 2006 - Sustainable Living: What on Earth is going on?

We keep hearing about the depletion of global natural resources, especially natural gas and oil. Terms like “greenhouse gas” and “Kyoto protocol” are bandied about in the media, but we as individuals don’t really know what or if we can do anything about it. We are told to recycle, go organic, re-use, shop locally and take public transport, but does it help? What does “sustainable living” really mean? All these questions and a few more will be discussed at the next International Science Festival Café Scientific, coming on the 1st March to Dunedin! We asked what concerned you, and many of you answered that you’d like to know more about the environment and sustainability. So, Café Scientific evenings are a chance for you to bring your concerns and questions to experts who can answer them, in a relaxed and informal setting. Come along, buy a drink, and settle in for an hour or two of thought-provoking and entertaining discussion.

1 March 2006

Venue To Be Confirmed, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Karen Hartshorn, phone (03) 474 9256 or email director@scifest.org.nz

Otago University Students’ Association - The Hitchhikers’ Guide to Orientation 2006

Orientation begins on 17 February and is the single biggest festival on the student calendar. It is an annual event organised by OUSA, welcoming to Otago University both new students (around 3,750) and those returning for another year (around 12,000). The festival takes place over two weeks and includes a diverse range of activities from music, comedy, hypnotism, competitions, treasure hunts, market days, togas, swimming sports, clubs days and inter hall competitions. Orientation in Otago has grown tremendously over the last few years. The number of students attending has doubled and this year will attract acts such as The Bomfunk MCs with P-Money and Minuit, Rhombus, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Katchafire and Concord Dawn. If you miss Orientation, you will miss the whole point of the Otago Experience. You've all seen news items of life in Dunedin and now it’s time to experience what being a scarfie is all about!

Runs until 3 March 2006

Contact for enquiries: Rob McCann, phone 03 479 5334 or email social.activities@ousa.org.nz

Contact for bookings: Otago University Students' Association, phone (03) 479 5332

Salisbury House Gallery - Kirsten Lovelock: Truth Loves To Go Naked

Artist Kirsten Lovelock presents an exhibition of personal art with works for sale.

Runs until 3 March 2006, 10.00am - 4.00pm

Salisbury House Gallery, 104 Bond Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Peter Booth, phone 021 1039 048, salisburybooks@mac.com or www.salisburyhousegallery.com

Cleveland Living Arts Centre

Large Art

Over 25 large (most over 2m square, or over 1m in height for 3D) works are displayed in the spacious high ceiling historic rooms of the Cleveland Living Art Centre. . Artists include Peter Cleverley, Clair Beynon, Marilyn Webb, Janet de Wagt, Judith Lane Ewing, Liz Abott, Elizabeth Manson, David Teata, James York, Inge Doesburg, James Robinson, Pete Wheeler, Angela Lyon, Sam Foley and Philp James Frost.

Runs until 4 March 2006

Dunedin Jewellery Breakfast

Held in the stunning atrium of the Otago Museum, models displaying the finest contemporary jewellery from local professionals promenade while patrons dine on fine local fare. This year the professionals are joined by students from the School of Art Jewellery Department. Presented in association with Armstrong Prestige, the Dunedin City Council and the Vodafone ID Dunedin Fashion Week

10 March 2006, 7.30am - 9.30am

Contact for bookings: Cleveland Living Arts Centre, phone 477 7291

Oceana Gold - National Jewellery Awards - The Art of Adornment

This inaugural event carries a total prize pool of $5,500. The Judge for the awards is Philip Clarke, director of Objectspace - a new and award winning Auckland based centre for craft and design. “It makes perfect sense for National Jewellery awards to be held at the same time of year as the ID Dunedin Fashion week” commented Kari Morseth, the Centre director, “fashion and adornment go hand in hand.” Dunedin has positioned itself as having some of the most highly regarded contemporary jewellers working in the City with studio workshops representing the finest in the country, making it an ideal home to these National Awards. The Centre, located in the historic Dunedin Railway Station, is a stunning location to house the awards; with its celebrated detailing and high, pressed metal ceilings; the large historic rooms will add to the elegant and stylish face of contemporary jewellery in New Zealand.

In association with the Dunedin City Council & Vodafone ID Dunedin Fashion Week

10 March - 4 April 2006

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

Fortune Theatre

Bombshells - NZ Premiere

Six explosive women on the edge. Morphing from an uncertain bride-to-be to a frantic mother, from an older widow who rediscovers one of life's pleasures to a teen at her school talent show to an aging diva, this play is about the bombshells that happen in women's lives. Join us for a celebration of all things feminine and fabulous. Author Joanna Murray-Smith (Honour) has found a way of penetrating the calm exterior of women's existence and finding what she calls “their inner besieged lives, the wilderness of the feminine spirit, the wildly volatile territories: erotic, fearful, desperate, cunning.” This is a one-woman show starring Jacqueline Nairn, which certainly packs a punch in an all-singing, all-dancing, roller-coaster ride. So good, so truthful and acted with such aplomb you'll forget there is only one woman on stage.

Runs until 4 March 2006

From India With Love

They came… they stayed… they set up shop. Winner of Best Local Act at the 2004 NZ International Comedy Festival and the creators of the hit show D’Arranged Marriage, Those Indian Guys bring their unique blend of comedy, Bollywood, madness and mayhem under the exuberant direction of renowned comedian Te Radar to the Fortune Theatre From India with Love is a celebration of love, loss and survival. With themes as ripe as cultural alienation and the Indian social system, how can you go wrong? From India with Love begins in a small Indian village in the 1950s. Manhur meets the beautiful Pushpar who is caring for her sick father. Falling in love with Pushpar immediately, even though she is darker than him and therefore undesirable, Manhur sets out to woo her. With the help of a little song and dance he wins her hand, much to the delight and astonishment of the entire village. Now they must help their families and make their fortunes so they journey to New Zealand. But it’s not all plain sailing. They must survive shipwrecks, unemployment and an extremely friendly Maori tribe before they achieve their dreams of setting up a little fruit and vegetable shop in Pukekohe and having babies! Combing puppetry, digital film projection, Bollywood Indian music and dancing, a raft of multi-media tricks as well as a lot of laughs, From India with Love warms and delights. Starring Rajeev Varma and Tarun Mohanbhai.

8 - 18 March 2006

Two

A sharp and touching slice of English life set in a Northern pub owned by a savagely bickering husband and wife. Two is a series of short vignettes that skilfully combines pathos and humour, with all fourteen actors played by two actors. During the course of the evening assorted customers pass through including a little boy left behind by his father - an event that triggers a movement towards a fragile reconciliation between the pub couple, as their own dark tragedy is revealed. Two is written by award winning playwright Jim Cartwright whose other plays are consistently performed around the world and have been translated into twenty languages. They include Road and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice upon which the film Little Voice was based.

9, 10 & 11 March 2006, 7.00pm

The Paradise Package - World Premiere

From the writer of Confessions of a Chocoholic comes a brand new play about the perfect tropical holiday: sun, sand, sex and sipping pina coladas by the pool. There’s just one teensy problem - your lover has planned a surprise vow renewal ceremony and there’s a little something you should really tell him… Play written and directed by Geraldine Brophy.

24 March - 18 April 2006

Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin

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

Contact for bookings: Box Office, phone (03) 477 8323 or online www.fortunetheatre.co.nz

Blue Oyster Gallery

Leagh Houghton

Reflecting an ongoing interest in architecture and ornamentation, Houghton’s project engages with the surfaces of buildings. The processes of investigating, copying, repeating, degrading and reconstructing surface qualities are integral to the work. She takes copies of various architectural features in latex, focussing on old domestic fittings and buildings in a way that is both nostalgic and archaeological. These large flaccid casts are intended to interrogate the object-ness of the original and to stand in for it in the gallery context. Other textural investigations into traditional woodblock wallpaper that has been translated into a stencil pattern and Houghton intends to recreate the pattern directly on the gallery wall using cake icing. Both elements of the work are engaged with traditionally curatorial ideas of display and preservation and are also means of working with ideas of production and loss.

Runs until 4 March 2006

Upper Gallery

Ruth Cleland - Sunny Days

Cleland is interested in the details of the everyday that may be familiar, overlooked or forgotten; the grittiness of a concrete block wall, the play of light and shadow in a room, the patterns on worn out-of-date carpet, the disused fluorescent light tube hanging above. Her current project involves photographing new suburban developments in Mosgiel and Hamilton and translating these images into a series of closely observed painting and drawings. She is interested in the uniformity of these areas and the newness and great speed of their production, not only do all the houses look the same but also the streets, the paving, the rows of neatly planted trees and the street lamps. Within the apparent sameness of suburbia are the uniqueness of individually lived rhythms and routines. The works in Sunny Days are observations that explore the everyday.

Runs until 4 March 2006

Lower Gallery

Fiona Connor & Margot Didsbury - Drifting Observatories

Drifting Observatories is a curatorial project conceived by Fiona Connor and Margot Didsbury, focusing on overseas links within 1 or 2 degrees of separation. The project is an investigation on a global scale at an individual level. Fifteen disposable cameras were sent to people covering all the continents with one stipulation being they had to use the cameras (27 exposures) from the 7th to the 14th of November 2005. Connor and Didsbury have focused on an inclusive system where the people asked were not necessarily practising artists. The participants’ selection reveals various environs imbued with personal values and what they think we, the audience, want to see. There is a possibility for the cameras to function as a direct feed or portal from each person. By using film, this allows for an unedited document enabling the entire process to be transparent. Drifting Observatories is made up of the following participants; Doody, Janie Coy, Renate Dus, Mark Black, Shao Ying, Angus Kerr, Ollie Griffen, Atsushi Koyama, Colin Kerr, Brita Urstad-Toft, Jim Selway, Dorota Goetzen, Adrian Carnegie, Patricia Corr, Humphrey Glennie, and Celia Sak Sak.

Runs until 4 March 2006

Dark Side Gallery

Victoria Edwards - The Heart Hath Ears

Edwards proposes an installation that explores a variety of media including moving image sequence, sculptural objects, photographic images, sound and drawn line. Inspired by Frances Hodgkins' oil on canvas 'Boy with a Boat’, the project uses the image as a nexus and starting point with other parts of the installation referring to the image both directly and allusively. The Heart Hath Ears explores notions of distance, time, gender and culture. It operates between positions of objectivity and subjectivity. The installation combines selected elements with an intention to open a field of meaning, a bridge between interior and exterior worlds, by drawing together the parts into a cohesive synthesis. The project will include video and projection works that also quietly interrogate process crossovers between medium. It does this by using projection as a document of drawing so the drawing process is experienced as it happens, larger than life in the gallery - as a way to add references and as still image.

7 - 25 March 2006

Dark Side & Upper Gallery

vjRex (Eugene Hansen) and Jenny Gillam - Video Garden

Hansen’s inquiry has been concerned with suburban anxiety and Gillam has been exploring ideas of environmental anxiety. The project is collaboration between the two that explores manifestations and phenomena relating to the relationships of the two. The project will take the form of a one off live video performance and an installation. Video Garden intends to investigate social political and ecological concerns and hopes to encourage a re-examination of experience. Allusive and layered with multiple possible interpretations the work is political but not didactic; presenting an expanded referential body of work that will evoke undercurrents of foreboding, menace, suspense and expressions of anxiety alongside playful elements. The final work will include large-scale digital prints, leaf blowers and a lawn mower, an audio component and video footage.

28 March - 15 April 2006

Dark Side & Upper Gallery

Jay Hutchinson

Hutchinson’s project is to translate graffiti that he finds scrawled over Dunedin surfaces into elaborate textile pieces. The copies are recorded faithfully with textile processes, fabric is coloured stained and stressed to resemble urban surfaces and the graffiti images and texts are delicately built up with thread in complex embroidery. What was written in seconds is recreated through this long and labour intensive task in a process that takes hours. By embroidering the graffiti the original context is shifted with new connotations being read into the work. The project questions the binaries of male/female, original/copy and public/private. The work moves from juvenile or disenfranchised voices in marginal public space to a formal traditional female handicraft.

28 March - 15 April 2006

Lower Gallery

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

Contact for enquiries: Ali Bramwell, phone (03) 479 0197, blueoyster@blueoyster.org.nz

Regent Theatre

David Strassman - Get Chucked Tour

From the dark and disturbingly twisted mind of David Strassman comes a hilarious new show! Chuck Wood, the white trash dummy is as mad as ever and while he is ready to mess with audiences, Ted E. Bare is back as stupidly cute and pathological as you remember him, accompanied by a new band of renegades. Fresh from the show’s world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the puppets are staging a revolt and tensions are running high as comic genius David Strassman gathers up his suitcase full of friends and heads back to New Zealand in 2006 for the Get Chucked Tour.

5 March 2006, 6.00pm

Legends Unleashed 2006

New Zealand Entertainment Legends, Eddie Low, Suzanne Prentice and John Grenell, are back. This trio, regarded as three of New Zealand’s greatest voices, are joined by international musicians and back-up vocalists with state of the art sound, lighting and audio-visual production. The cast presented the highly successful and critically acclaimed “Legends Unleashed” in September 2005 and Legends Unleashed 2006 will tour throughout New Zealand in March/April of this year. Legends Unleashed 2006 will feature many of the traditional songs Eddie, Suzanne and John are best remembered for. The musicians will perform individually and together and present many brand new songs for the first time in New Zealand.

10 March 2006, 8.00pm

The Beatles And Roy Orbison

Undoubtedly the finest most authentic Beatles tribute band in the world today. The BEATLEmaniacs are direct from sell-out performances at the world famous "Cavern Club" where the phenomenon of "Beatlemania" began. These four young guys are about the same age as The Beatles were when they were touring themselves. They are FAB and you will be amazed how precisely they recreate those magical times we all remember. They perform all of The Beatles hits so well you'll believe you're hearing and seeing the real thing. Supported by Roy Orbison portrayed by Barry Steele we have a match made in heaven as Barry is believable in every way. The looks, the vocal talent and the sheer professionalism will blow you away and is a must for all "Big O" fans.

14 March 2006, 8.00pm

The Wedding - Presented by the Royal New Zealand Ballet

Angie and Brad are love’s young dream. With their movie-star good looks and impending nuptials, the couple are the toast of Auckland society. The big day draws closer and Angie begins to doubt her all-American fiancé is the marrying kind. When Charles shambles his way back into her life, she finds herself caught in a hopeless love triangle. As her suitors square off, Angie is forced to choose between her head and her heart. Master of ceremonies Witi Ihimaera has created a madcap take on modern romance. From rugby clubroom to inner-city nightclub, hotel reception to church, The Wedding is a distinctly homegrown love story. The major commission of 2006 reunites the acclaimed creative team of choreographer Mark Baldwin, designer Tracy Grant and lighting designer John Rayment, which gave the Royal New Zealand Ballet its groundbreaking ballet FrENZy. Combining pure classical technique with a contemporary edge, The Wedding is set to Gareth Farr’s sparkling new score. It’s a marriage made in heaven.

17 & 18 March 2006, 7.30pm

Contact for enquiries: George Hills, phone (04) 381 9018

Black Milk

Black Milk is an exploration of the boundaries of love, fear and memory, expressed through Wright's uniquely physical language and trademark earthy black humour. This is the first major new work since 2002 from Douglas Wright (an inaugural Arts Foundation of NZ Arts Laureate and recipient the Creative NZ Choreography Fellowship) and will showcase the gifts of some of New Zealand's leading dancers. Sarah-Jayne Howard and Claire O'Neil are both returning from overseas for the tour. Leading male dancer Craig Bary also had a planned performance at the Opera House in Australia rescheduled in order to be available, commenting: “When I heard Douglas was creating a new work I knew it would be because he was intensely inspired. This is a rare and precious opportunity to be part of that experience.” The eight-strong ensemble will also feature the talents of local dancers Alex Leonhartsberger, Jessica Shipman and Paora Taurima, as well as actor Carl Bland.

28 March 2006, 8.00pm

Regent Theatre, 17 The Octagon, Dunedin

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

Dunedin Centre - Chamber Music New Zealand - Slava Grigoryan

The magical guitar music of Albéniz, Turina and Mudarra, together with works by young Australian Sean Rigney and British composer Reginald Smith Brindle, features in Slava's first programme. The evening opens with delightful music such as Mudarra’s Fantasia No 1 & 10, and Romanesca and continues into three works from Sor - Variations on a Theme by Mozart, ‘Das klinget so herrlich’ (from The Magic Flute), and Opus 9. From there the concert takes in Sean Rigney’s Sonata in E and follows with a fascinating collection of works from Spain and South America including Moreno Torroba’s Suite Catellana, Turina’s Fandanguillo, and Smith Brindle’s El Polifemo de Oro (Four Fragments for Guitar). The evening’s programme concludes with Albéniz’s La Torre Bermeja, Sevilla and William Lovelady’s evocative The Sounds of Rain.

Presented by Chamber Music New Zealand

7 March 2006, 8.00pm

Glenroy Auditorium, 1 Harrop Street, Dunedin

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

id Dunedin Fashion - Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Week 2006

The New Zealand public will get their opportunity to experience the best of New Zealand fashion when the Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Week hits town from 7-11 March 2006. The main event is the Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Show celebrating its seventh anniversary with a return to the classic and popular venue of the historic Dunedin Railway Station, and will be held on Saturday 11 March 2006. The 2006 fashion week is a leading event on Dunedin's calendar, where designers, stylists, fashion media, models, make-up and hair artists take over the city. The Vodafone id Dunedin Emerging Designer Awards are also back by popular demand, and will be held on the evening of Friday 10 March 2006. Upcoming designers are once again going to be a major part of the Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Week 2006. Entries for the id Emerging Designer awards were open worldwide and have now closed. The Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Week is pure fashion heaven where the public see international catwalk shows to emerging designers showcasing their collections. Participants, judges, VIP's, prizes, ancillary events and dates for ticket sales are yet to be announced. For online news, events and information about the Vodafone id Dunedin Fashion Week, check out www.id-dunedinfashion.com

7 - 11 March 2006

Contact for enquiries: Julie Howard, phone (03) 482 2169 or email julie@parka.co.nz

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

Milford Galleries Dunedin

Mike Petre: New Works

Mike Petre describes his talent by saying “My work is a personal response to memory and experiences associated with spending a large part of my life immersed in rural environments. My paintings are not an attempt to elevate, idealize, or romanticize the rural, but rather a means of exploring the notion of what it is, and what it may mean to be a 'local', and developing a visual language to convey this. New Zealand has a rich and varied history of landscape painting yet I feel little has been attempted within the visual arts to explore issues of localized rural experience and landscape.” Mike Petre was born in rural King Country in 1964 and graduated with a Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University in 1986. He spent several years working on farms in New Zealand and abroad including the UK and Israel. In 1994 Petre graduated with a Bachelor of Design, Carrington Polytechnic and has since exhibited throughout New Zealand. He was a finalist in three Wallace Art Awards, and also in three Art Waikato National Art Awards.

Runs until 16 March 2006

John Parker: Superstrata

John Parker, well known for his severe white glazed bowls, bottles and orbs, has temporarily left his potters wheel. His new works are made by piping clay in threads to build up three-dimensional architectural structures. Looking like something between cake icing and stalactites, these shapes appear organic but also engineered, crossing borders between what we know and what we don’t. John Parker was born in Auckland in 1947 and lives in Waitakere. He graduated from Auckland Teachers Training College in 1970 and in 1975 completed a Masters degree from the Royal College of Art in London. Parker has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally with his work in major public, private and corporate collections throughout New Zealand and abroad including the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, and the New Zealand Embassies in Tokyo and Jakarta. Parker has obtained numerous awards and residencies during his career and was most recently appointed to the Creative NZ Craft/Object Art Fellowship committee.

Runs until 16 March 2006

Callum Arnold: Contents May Shift

In his first exhibition with Milford Galleries Dunedin, Callum Arnold explores, in oils on canvas, geographic experience and how it is diffused through photography, film and television. “The inherent spiritual nature of the land has become diffused through the context of new media,” Arnold explains going on to say that the very act of looking is bound by a camera frame, the way light is filtered and focused by a lens. Born in Wellington in 1973, Callum Arnold gained a MFA with Distinction in Printmaking for the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 2001. He has exhibited in Canterbury since 2000.

18 March - 6 April 2006

Cheryl Lucas: Inside Out

“Clay is both a surface and a form; two and three dimensional. For me, it is the ideal material to convey ideas through the shape of the form and the surface imagery. In doing this the disciplines of both fine and applied art merge into one. I make clay forms, usually based on the vessel shape, then draw, paint or print the surface which is then glazed and high fired. These forms and their imagery generally reflect or comment on aspects of our social and environmental existence with reference also to our ceramic and painting traditions.” These are the observations of artist Cheryl Lucas, who majored in graphics at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin in 1975 and in 1987 completed a Certificate in Advanced Printmaking (Lithography) at the Wimbledon College of Art in London. After periods of teaching at a number of Christchurch secondary schools, she joined the staff of CPIT in 1988 teaching ceramics and drawing. She exhibits throughout New Zealand.

18 March - 6 April 2006

Milford Galleries Dunedin, 18 Dowling Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Karen Trebilcock, phone (03) 477 8275, email karen@milfordhouse.co.nz

Hocken Collections

Rohan Wealleans: Frances Hodgkins Fellow

Paintings, sculptures and a video installation by the 2005 Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago.

Runs until 17 March 2006

Luncheon Under the Ash Tree: The Ian and Elespie Prior Collection

Related to the founder of Landfall magazine, Elespie Forsyth spent the 1940s in Dunedin and Nelson working alongside Toss Woollaston, Colin McCahon, Anne Hamblett, Doris Lusk and Rodney Kennedy. She and her husband amassed a remarkable collection of modern paintings by these artists and others, which have been made available to tour nationally by Aratoi: the Wairarapa Museum of Art and History.

25 March - 13 May 2006

Hocken Collections, University of Otago, 90 Anzac Avenue, Dunedin

Weekdays 9.30am - 5.00pm, Saturdays 9.00am - 12.00pm

Contact for enquiries: Dr Anna Petersen, phone (03) 479 8870 or anna.petersen@library.otago.ac.nz

DCC Events

Luau

The St Clair Esplanade will come alive with an authentic Polynesian Luau celebration. The local Polynesian community will lead this cultural gala of food, dance and family entertainment.

18 March 2006

St Clair Esplanade, St Clair, Dunedin

Dunedin Summer Festival

The 52nd annual Dunedin Summer Festival runs over a month and features events such as an authentic Polynesian Luau, the World’s Steepest Race - The Baldwin Street Gutbuster and a number of outdoor activities and performances from local clubs and societies.

Runs until 26 March 2006

DCC Events, 50 The Octagon, Dunedin

For more information check out the website: www.CityofDunedin.com

Contact for enquiries: Marilyn Anderson, phone (03) 474 3456 or email events@dcc.govt.nz

Dunedin Public Art Gallery - Exhibitions

Miyabi: Japanese Masterworks from Dunedin Collections

Drawing on treasures from the collections of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Olveston and the Otago Museum, this fascinating exhibition explores key aspects of traditional Japanese art and culture, including exquisite ceramics, woodblock prints, lacquerware, carved netsuke and lavishly ornamented weapons. Curated by Shuzo Tsuchiya, Director of the Otaru Museum, this is the most comprehensive exhibition of Japanese artifacts ever presented in Dunedin.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Supported by Museums Aotearoa and the Asia New Zealand Foundation

Runs until 20 March 2006

Michael Reed: Cultural Vulture

Flashes and fragments of island life pour down nine immense paper scrolls in Michael Reed’s work for the Big Wall. Fascinated by a Rarotongan god stick in the collection of the Canterbury Museum and the cultural exchanges that took it there, Reed has created a work exploring the look of life on Rarotonga amidst a torrent of tourists.

Runs until 9 April 2006

Femininity Defined - Frances Hodgkins’ Images of Women

At the beginning of what would become a very unusual career, Frances Hodgkins painted women at work. Travelling to Europe, she replaced the servant girls, good wives and happy mothers of Dunedin with French and Italian orange sellers and farm workers. Returning to New Zealand, she showed her sophistication and awareness of the taste for exotic and fascinating females with a hint of the harem and the fashion for fans.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs until 16 April 2006

Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs

Ans Westra is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated photographers, with a career spanning almost 50 years. She is known particularly for her photographs of Mäori, the 1970s counterculture and protest action in general. Handboek is a large-scale survey exhibition of her work.

Runs until 15 May 2006

The Amazing Face: Four Centuries of Portraits from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

Through portraits as varied as Sir Joshua Reynolds' painting of the well-born but illegitimate Maria, Countess Waldegrave, CF Goldie's All 'e same t'e Pakeha, Raymond Ching's Rebecca and the Music Student and a selection of contemporary photographs, The Amazing Face traces some of the major trends and changes in portraiture over more than four hundred years and examines a few curiosities along the way.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition

Runs until 28 May 2006

Jeffrey Harris: The Melbourne Drawings

The first New Zealand showing of a major new acquisition. Made by an artist famed for his pencil drawings, this 32-part series is a visual story of love and separation, a whirlwind of graphic invention. The series, made in 1986, opens with drawings that recall Harris’s fine-lined 1970s works. The closing images, stark and gestural, anticipate the bold strokes of his abstract drawings from the 1990s.

Runs until 4 June 2006

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

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

Contact for Visitor Programme enquiries: Robyn Notman, phone (03) 474 3258

Dunedin Centre - Bic Runga - Birds

Bic just completed "Birds" her most amazing studio album yet and it features her studio band of Neil Finn, Anika Moa, Shayne Carter (Dimmer), Ricky Gooch (Trinity Roots), Ben Maitland (Boxcar Guitars), 'Tim Arnold (Pluto), Conrad Standish (The Devastations) and Anna Coddingto (Duchess). In this concert Bic is presenting the songs and the band, from the "Birds" sessions, live on stage. For many people their introduction to Bic Runga as a live performer was on the triumphant Tim Finn, Bic Runga, Dave Dobbyn, "Together In Concert" tour of NZ in 2000. It was very obvious that Bic was something very special, as she shone vividly from the stage and performed easily with Finn & Dobbyn. Since then Bic has toured New Zealand twice. Once on her Beautiful Collision tour with Paul Kelly & Boh Runga and then again with the Acoustic Church tour in 2004. The latter was probably the most interesting tour to see Bic pretty much play the show alone and captivate the entire audience each night, she was an absolute thrill to watch. Bic is here to grace the stage again.

21 March 2006, 8.00pm

Dunedin Town Hall, 1 Moray Place, Dunedin

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

Opera Otago (Dunedin Opera Company) - Antonio Salieri’s Falstaff

Dunedin Opera celebrates its 50th Jubilee year with the first Australasian production of Salieri’s opera Falstaff. The opera has enjoyed great success in recent years in Europe and America, and this production is already attracting attention from opera lovers beyond Dunedin. Opera Otago is gathering a small cast of professional singers to perform this work with outstanding young Australian baritone, Derek Welton, singing the part of Falstaff. Local singer Fiona Henry is Mrs Ford and Auckland Tenor, Derek Hill, sings the role of Mr Ford. Dunedin’s own Matthew Landreth and Claire Barton perform as Mr and Mrs Slender and Amanda Cole and Bruce McMillan play the servants Betty and Bardolph.

25 March - 1 April 2006, 8.00pm

Mayfair Theatre, 100 King Edward Street, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Mary Dixon, phone 03 488 3582

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

Dunedin Botanic Garden - Explorer Tours

Take an Explorer Tour around the Dunedin Botanic Garden’s Glasshouse and Lister Garden.

25 March 2006, 2.00pm - 3.00pm

Dunedin Botanic Garden, Information Centre, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Clare Fraser, phone (03) 474 5019

Otago Museum

ANZANG (Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea) -

Nature and Landscape Photographer of the Year

ANZANG is a competition established in 2004 and held annually which invites amateur and professional photographers, of any age or nationality, to enter photographs of flora, fauna and wilderness landscape taken in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea (countries and regions all joined within the great southern continent of Gondwana Land over fifty million years ago). Sixty-three winning and highly commended photographs were chosen by the judges to make up this travelling exhibition. Four judges, all professional photographers, chose the winning and highly commended photographs from 620 entries that capture the remarkable diversity of the nature and landscape of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea.

Runs until 26 March 2006

Rediscover China

Leading Chinese photographers have captured an essence of the cultural existence that is China. Refulgent Civilisation, Reform and Opening Up and Peace and Development themes fuse in the celebration of a rich traditional history, vivacious present and promising future for this influential nation.

Runs until 1 April 2006

Scarfies: Otago Student Culture

No other city in New Zealand has a student culture as strong, vibrant and distinctive as that found in Dunedin, the home of the Scarfie. The Otago Museum is excited to announce the imminent arrival of Scarfies: Otago Student Culture. This exhibition promises to blend humour, politics, freezing flats and scholarship, illuminating the icons of this unique student lifestyle. Through this exhibition, past and present students can commemorate the long traditions that have been passed from one generation to another since the foundation of the University in 1869. The exhibition is also an opportunity for greater Otago to celebrate the richness and creativity that the student body brings to our special city. Scarfies: Otago Student Culture will be on display in the People of the World Gallery.

Runs until 2 July 2006

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

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 & Saturdays between 12 noon & 1.30pm

Discovery World - Science with a Difference!

Experience heaps of hands-on science at its best in Otago Museum's interactive science centre, Discovery World. There's so much cool stuff that you won't know where to start! If you love getting active you can engage yourself with the new IBM TryScience Kiosk, challenge your friends to a game of air hockey or table soccer, try to sound the alarm on the Big Red Fire Engine, inflate a hot air balloon, warp yourself with the trick mirror, stomp out a tune on the giant foot piano or test your skills with our tricky puzzles. And if you have a fondness for animals you can visit the fishy enclosure of the Discovery World Aquarium on your way to our frogs, geckos and red-eared terrapins. You can check out our furry little friends - the rabbit, guinea pig and mice, and if you're brave enough you can take a peek at our creepy crawly tarantulas! But wait, that's not all - there's also our special exhibition with even more exciting and fun things to do! It's changing all the time, bringing you great new experiences from around New Zealand and overseas. So, make sure you keep an eye out for our latest show, and you'll be in for a new adventure all over again. With so much to do in Discovery World you'll want to spend all day and all night there - and guess what? You can - that's right, we have sleepovers right here in the science centre!

Ongoing Service

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 & 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 & 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

Open 7 Days, 10.00am - 5.00pm

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

Dunedin Public Libraries Network

Discovery Tours

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

Ongoing Service - Tuesdays, 10.30am & 1.00pm; Last Saturday of the month, 2.00pm.

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.

Ongoing Service - Last Saturday of the month, 1.00 pm

Dunedin City Library, Moray Place, Dunedin

Contact for enquiries: Liz Knowles, phone (03) 474 3317, email lknowles@dcc.govt.nz

Otago Settlers Museum - Exhibitions

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

Appliance Emporium: Housekeeping Made Easy

Whenever you start to grumble about doing the chores, spare a thought for how housekeeping was conducted in the old days. There were no washing machines to load, set and forget. No one-touch microwave cooking. Ironing likewise was a dreaded chore that involved hours of intensive effort. This exhibition takes a look at some of the housekeeping devices used by Victorian housekeepers and the introduction in the mid-twentieth century of some of those labour-saving devices we now take for granted.

An Otago Settlers Museum exhibition

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 - Visitor Programmes

Walk The Inner City

An experienced guide will takes visitors on a 90-minute stroll while experiencing the character, history and beauty of Dunedin, New Zealand’s first great city. Enjoy this wonderful insight into Dunedin’s architectural and social past.

Ongoing Service, 11.00am weekdays

Visitor Information Centre, The Octagon, Dunedin

Introductory Tours of the Museum

Experience a guided tour of the Otago Settlers Museum. Each tour lasts approximately 30 minutes.

Ongoing Service, 11.00am weekdays (except public holidays)

Otago Settlers Museum, 31 Queens Gardens, Dunedin, New Zealand

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

Contact for Visitor Programme enquiries: John Ingram, phone (03) 474 2728

ENDS

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