Nadia sips her coffee and gazes out at the steely grey morning. She glances at her phone one last, depressing time. ‘Wildfires in Rhodes as well,’ she says. ‘Dubrovnik. Southern Italy. Northern Algeria. The whole Mediterranean is on fire.’ Across the table, Lloyd shakes his head, pushes the sleeves of his faded sweatshirt above…
By Andrew Paul Wood Michael Armstrong was born in Christchurch in 1954 and has regularly exhibited since 1969. He graduated from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1976. He lives in Timaru in South Canterbury and had a lengthy career as an art tutor at Aoraki Polytechnic, later Ara Institute. He was…
Tēnā koutou katoa We know how busy December gets for many people, so the takahē team has worked hard to bring you our 109th issue early in the month. We’re sure you’ll find plenty inside from our contributors to challenge, delight, and move you, and hope takahē will find a special spot in your summer…
A selection of three pages from the larger work, Ao Legends. Pita Mei has been an artist for most of his life, working on projects all across the country and abroad. Ao Legends debuts as his first independent project, reimagining some of the most famous stories of Hawaiki, Aotearoa and the South Pacific through a…
Tongariro National Park: an artist’s field guide, by Desmond Bovey. Craig Potton (2023). RRP $39.99. PB, 200pp. ISBN 9781988550510. Reviewed by Andrew Paul Wood. It might be argued that our national parks are already works of art in their own right. In that respect, Tongariro is one of the most beautiful. Artist Desmond Bovey’s beautiful…
Tung by Robyn Maree Pickens. OUP (2023). RRP: $25.00. PB, 87pp. ISBN: 9781990048609. Reviewed by Michelle Elvy. Robyn Maree Pickens is an art writer, poet, curator, and text-based practitioner, all of which is evident in her debut poetry collection. Tung opens with an invitation, a weaving of words and wonder on the page: Brush the…
Artists in Antarctica edited by Patrick Shepherd. MUP (2023). RRP: $80. HB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781991016270. Reviewed by James Norcliffe. I couldn’t help but gather adjectives from the first few pages of this handsome book: brutal, fearsome, desolate, hostile, extreme, unforgiving, bleak, inhospitable, unpredictable, forbidding… There is in fact a thesaurus load of such adjectives to describe…
Tsunami by Ned Wenlock. Earth’s End Publishing (2023). RRP: $27.99. PB, 278pp. ISBN: 9780473655679, Reviewed by Matt Scowcroft. I’m a bit of an art masochist. I want to be hurt by the books I read, and I often find stories in which everything is alright in the end unsatisfying. I don’t think that is unusual —…
Talia by Isla Huia. Dead Bird Books (2023). RRP: $30.00. PB, 87pp. ISBN: 9781991150639. Reviewed by Ariana Tikao. Talia is Isla Huia’s (Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku) debut poetry collection published by the Auckland-based indie publisher Dead Bird Books. It consists of 35 poems full of pūrākau, of fascinating images, of our atua Māori, and people – alive…