Various Artists with Sofia & Maya

Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and youth worker from Tāmaki Makaurau. 

1985 is Dominic’s highly anticipated third novel. Set in pre-gentrified Auckland, it follows the story of Obi, who faces impending teenagehood after a childhood marked by poverty, dysfunctional family dynamics, (dis)organised crime and violence.

Beth caught up with Dominic about the writing of 1985.

Summer Xia and Annie Guo join Alice Canton in the studio to chat about their respective shows for Comedy Festival. 

Selected works by Judy Millar and Kate Newby are currently showing at Michael Lett Gallery. 

Judy Millar is an internationally acclaimed artist. Her work is intensely physical, working with processes of erasure, wiping or scraping paint off the surface of the work and contrasting choices of colour to create a tension between the background and foreground. Taking up space, works by Millar are often large-scale, engaging with the body and her work in a space.

Kate Newby is a visual artist from Tāmaki Makaurau who lives and works in Floresville, Texas. Her work engages with a wide range of situations using every-day actions and materials in order to displace and challenge how contemporary art is exhibited, viewed, and archived. She manipulates, fires, and arranges elements from the natural world and built environment, creating site-responsive installations, often with projects drawing directly from the locations in which they are exhibited and the sites she works in. 

Sofia caught up with both Judy and Kate about their practices in light of the show. 

Sofia had a kōrero with Matariki Bennett about her debut poetry collection, e kō, nō hea koe, out now via Dead Bird Books

She also caught up w Kaitohu Director of Artspace Aotearoa, Ruth Buchanan, about their latest exhibition, Intimation of Endless Space Given in a Small Window of Time (approximately 10 minutes) by Lina Grumm and Ethan Braun. 

And Beth had a kōrero with Ruby Macomber about Streetside, Auckland Writer’s Festival’s annual fringe event. 

And for Stage Direction this week, Alice Canton joined Sofia in the studio to chat with Evie Orpe and Becky Umbers about Comedy Fest.