Thursday 22 May 2014
St Kevin's Arcade Celebrates First Thursdays 1960's Edition
Tuesday 22 April 2014
There’s a Revolution Going on In Inner City K’ Road
“I’m looking forward to the public getting more involved
this time, dressing up in ‘60’s vintage, having their hair back-combed, having
a go-go lesson and dancing in Ironbank courtyard afterwards,” says organiser
Laura Forest.
Now into its fifth year, First Thursdays attracts a crowd of
around 8,000 people – a crowd Laura hopes will join with retailers, café
owners, performers and musicians in recreating the spirit of an era close to K’
Road’s own revolutionary heart.
Participants willing to embrace the theme will be ably
assisted in this endeavour by a team of vintage specialists in St Kevin’s
Arcade offering free beehive hairdos and flower power face painting, while a
best-dressed competition will see one 1960’s pretender walk away with a $100
voucher to spend at arcade old-timer Vixen Vintage.
The NZ Film Archive will be reminiscing with showings of
footage of outdoor festivals from the period while an East St marketing company
will make an outside 1960’s lounge available for cinema viewings.
A Flashback Walkway will feature at La Gonda Arcade where
life-size cardboard cut-outs will depict key characters and events of the day
and, at the top of Queen St, Maori Stylez will host a Maori/1960’s fashion
parade in-house.
Cross St Arcade at 214 K’ Road will undergo its usual
transformation into a bustling art and craft market and the opportunity to have
New Zealand-made 1960’s couture photographed for posterity at 179 K’ Road will
be on offer from the New Zealand Fashion Museum and Kingsize Studios.
Keep an eye out for roving go-go dancer Miss La Vida, have
your dress-up get-up painted by street portrait artists for $10 and dance the
night away to the sounds of soul and R & B emanating from 50-year-old vinyl
at Verona.
It’s an “appropriately broad” theme, says Laura. “Even within the ‘60’s you can approach it
from so many different angles, which means we’re not confining people to any
one thing.” But, dress choices aside,
the thing which gives her the most pleasure as this celebration of all things
art unfolds, “is simply walking around on the night watching people having so
much fun.”
What: First Thursdays
Where: Karangahape Rd
When: Thursday 1 May 2014
Time: 6-9pm
Website: www.firstthursdays.co.nz
Sunday 30 March 2014
K’ Road Art Trail Expands
Image: Laura Forest
The vibrancy and colour of K’ Road’s outdoor art offering is
about to increase as the precinct gears up for its second All Fresco festival. The twelve large-scale
artworks which were realised at last year’s three-day street art event,
sponsored by K’ Road Business Association, are about to be augmented with nine
new works over the weekend beginning Friday 2 May. “It was always the plan to do another one and
make it an ongoing event,” says curator Ross Liew.
Nine artists from areas across Auckland, Tauranga and
Wellington will be gathering on K’ Road to execute their visual interpretations
of this much-loved street. And while
each will bring their individual style to their work, they will all be
encouraged to consider the history and stories behind their allocated walls in
their creative efforts. “We want them to
respond to the area and address some of the things which are specific to this
community,” says Ross.
The proven skill and experience of artists has been a big
factor in selecting participants, he says, “because it’s not particularly easy
working large scale and outside. If you
look at the first All Fresco, it rained for the full three days and, if you
haven’t dealt with that before, it’s probably not the best place to be dealing
with it for the first time.”
Onlookers can expect to see work from artists such as Mt
Maunganui’s Owen Dippie, a traditional portraiture-style outdoor artist,
Auckland’s Tania Jade, (formerly Misery) known for her doe-eyed manga-inspired
figures and Wellington’s BMD duo, who display a penchant for depicting large
format animals, not always in one piece.
And the three-day timeframe they will be working to offers spectators a
rare glimpse into the underlying process each employs.
“There’s a bit of mystery in how large art is
created and if you’re interested in the ‘how’ of an artist’s work method, All
Fresco is like having an open studio,” says Ross. He’s excited about seeing new walls added to what has now
become K’ Road’s Street Art Tour circuit and, in particular, by the potential
inclusion of the wall on the side of the reservoir on the corner of Ponsonby
and K’ Roads because of its importance as a gateway from one neighbourhood to
another.
But even as the K’ Road Street Art Tour expands with each new
All Fresco, its curator is aware that street art is a temporary art form. “We don’t consider any of these artworks to
be permanent. The lifespan of some might
be a short as one year. I think a really
quite important part of the nature of this is that it’s temporary and it’s
updated and it’s ongoing. It’s really
just about enhancing the environment and providing food for thought.”
All Fresco will kick off with an exhibition of participating
artist’s studio-based work on Thursday night in conjunction with K’ Road’s late
night art event First Thursdays. Artists
will then be ensconced at their designated sites in and around K’ Road from
Friday 2nd through to Sunday 4th May. For more information on wall locations and
updates on events as they unfold visit www.allfresco.co.nz
Tuesday 11 March 2014
First Thursdays 1960's Edition
K’ Road is gearing up for an invasion of 1960’s culture as
it prepares for the first First Thursdays of the year. The theme for the precinct’s signature art
event, which will be held on 1 May 2014, is the 1960’s, which promises an
infusion of all the colour and revolutionary attitude which epitomised this
swinging decade, but with a 2014 twist. Backcombed
beehives, billowing bell-bottoms, psychedelic artwork and the strains of
Woodstock, it’s all on the agenda K’Road-style as the street launches FirstThursdays 1960’s Edition.
Tuesday 21 January 2014
Art and Craft with a Queer Twist
Sam Orchard with a sample of his 'transguy' art
Attendees can expect to see a mix of goods which would usually
grace the tables of a Kraftbomb or Zinefest event including jewellery, leather
products, household linen, cards, soaps, comics and zines (small self-published
magazines) but with items reflecting the diverse sexuality and gender identity
of their creators, says organiser Sam Orchard.
The personal comic strip he will be exhibiting for sale, for
example, follows his four-year journey transitioning from a female to a male
identity. Adopting the medium of a comic
strip to tell his story has enabled him to explore the lighter side of the
experience of being gender different.
This is in contrast to how he believes mainstream media would have
approached his story, with the emphasis there, he speculates, more likely to
have been on the potentially devastating emotional effects of switching gender.
Rooster Tails, as his comic is titled, ‘is a place where I
can explore what is actually the cool stuff about being queer and
transgender.’ For instance, ‘the
funniness of going out with someone where the world thought we were both girls
together. And we’re, like, no, actually
we’re still gay but we’re boys together.’
His vision for
Everything and Everyone is for it to be a focal point for expression of all the
identities our community embodies and an opportunity to celebrate and embrace them
without bias. The event will run from
4-7pm in St Kevin’s Arcade on Saturday 15 February and will be followed by Mixtape Sessions – a live music event run by Romp Project also aimed at
Auckland’s rainbow community.
Thursday 12 December 2013
K' Road Highlights
K’ Road’s collection of heritage buildings will have a creative spotlight cast over them as the precinct’s inaugural light show Highlights rolls out this month. The sight of the former Rendell’s building shattering and being reconstructed brick by brick and giant Christmas balls cascading down the exterior of the adjacent Ironbank complex are just some of the virtual experiences onlookers can expect to encounter at the event.
‘We’ll be
making shapes, putting things into shapes and making things come out of
shapes,’ says the light show’s creator Dan Davis. A digital specialist of
four years standing he’ll be trialling new 3D technology which he hopes will ‘get
K’ Road on the map for Christmas and match the area’s creative and forward
thinking culture.’
Tuesday 12 November 2013
K' Road Lights Up for Christmas
Christmas is coming to K’ Road and true to the street’s
subversive reputation, it won’t be in traditional style. Celebrations kick off with the precinct’s signature late night art
event First Thursdays - boasting a fiesta theme this time – in conjunction with
an inaugural light show, Highlights, which will cast a creative spotlight on a
selection of the precinct’s character buildings over ten days.
The sight of the former Rendell’s building shattering and
being reconstructed brick by brick and giant Christmas balls cascading down the
exterior of the adjacent Ironbank complex are just some of the virtual
experiences onlookers can expect to encounter at Highlights.
‘We’ll be making shapes, putting things into shapes and
making things come out of shapes,’ says the light show’s creator Dan
Davis. A digital specialist of four
years standing he’ll be trialling new 3D technology which he hopes will ‘get K’
Road on the map for Christmas and match the area’s creative and forward
thinking culture.’
The light display will focus on different buildings between
Queen and Pitt St each evening with some projections being fused with music
from local café Verona. And launch night
on 5 December is expected to provide a fitting backdrop for the staging of the final
First Thursday’s of the year which will be taking place across three of the
precinct’s arcades including St Kevin’s, La Gonda and Cross St from 6-9pm.
A Mexican flavour will be infusing First Thursdays with a
roaming Mariachi band scheduled, free Day of the Dead face painting on offer
and Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte inhabiting St Kevin’s to dispense sweets.
‘We decided on the theme of fiesta because it encompasses
celebration, festivity, colour and diversity which is what First Thursdays is
all about,’ says event co-ordinator Laura Forest. ‘And our Christmas FirstThursdays will be more about fun and playfulness rather than getting bogged
down with northern hemisphere snowflakes and tradition,’ she says. To this end patrons are invited to negotiate
an interactive tunnel in La Gonda Arcade, engage with a steam punk vending
machine at St Kevin’s Arcade or kiss under a rose bower infused with mistletoe
at the top of the steps to Myers Park.
Laura’s pragmatic festive season sentiments are echoed by
her director of activities in St Kevin’s Arcade, Rose Jackson. Having invited traders from along K’ Road to
provide pop up sales of confectionery and jewellery inside the heritage arcade
as a complement to the variety of vintage, handcraft and designer fashion goods
already on offer there, she believes shoppers will appreciate the opportunity
to take part in a locally-inspired Christmas.
‘You’ll be able to buy from vintage retailers and really clever New
Zealand designers who make their own stuff.’
Conversely, ‘you won’t hear any naff Christmas tunes, be forced to buy
plastic junk or find yourself stuck in a mall,’ she says.
For the full programme of First Thursdays and Highlights
activities visit www.firstthursdays.co.nz
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