Stories

New Zealand’s regions are full of galleries representing the work of local artists. Rarer outside the cities are contemporary art dealers representing the often more challenging work of artists nationally. From 1997-2004 in Paekākāriki, was a quite brilliant exception: One Eye Gallery. Just north of the Wellington art scene, highly regarded painter Gary Freemantle operated a satellite. He mixed an ever startling array of art outsiders and locals – work of quality from elsewhere but little seen in Wellington – and artists already of repute trialling new ways of working, like Don Driver, Joanna Margaret Paul, Rob Cherry and Hariata Ropata-Tangahoe.

An award-winning community newspaper we consider, with total bias, to be one of the finest ever printed. Paekakariki Xpressed editor Don Polly here reflects on those who contributed to a paper which informed and entertained Paekākāriki households for a decade.

‘Photographs like these are traitors to the fact that we easily forget.’ Mark Amery kicks off a series dedicated to the stories of the infamous Paekākāriki Pub with a photo essay by Andrew Ross.

When it rains hard a treasured Kāpiti Coast waterway, Wainui Stream turns very brown. Home to some of the best native fish biodiversity in the Wellington region the stream, says freshwater ecologist and advocate Mike Joy, has long been abused. It is now likely being damaged by Transmission Gully work upstream after measures requested by the Environmental Protection Agency were not put in place.