Emily Allchurch

Photomontages that look like famous paintings, but with subtle differences. Emily Allchurch recreates landscapes that never existed, and gives them a lived-in look. Fascinating! You can see a few of her works here, and her wonderful Tower of London is here.

Radio new Zealand downloads

For all those who don't know, Radio New Zealand now offers almost all their programmes for downloading as MP3s. Catch up with exactly what you're interested in, whenever, wherever! Awesome. And you can also listen online if you prefer.

Lost and found

The BBC has pictures of a few of the 1.3 million animals which were presumed to have been killed in the conflict in Southern Sudan, which have been rediscovered.

Why space exploration is so expensive

One of the funniest Onion stories ever.

Toggle

If you are looking for contemporary New Zealand craft, art, or craft art, look no further than Toggle! There's something here in every price range and to suit every taste. Particular favourites of mine are the gummy-bear earrings, the Crown Lynn toki, the button necklaces, this amazing photography, beautiful kete, and the "brickwall" cushion by the incomparable Judy Darragh.

Edward Burtynsky

This Canadian photographer documents the massive transformations of the Earth by heavy industry. From opencast mining, quarries and railway cuttings; to oilfields, refineries, dam building and coal depots; to vast factories, shipyards, recycling depots and rubbish heaps, Burtynsky's large-scale photographs are panoramas of human endeavour.

The images have a brutal grandeur, recalling Piranesi, Gustave Dore, and Franz Kafka.

This site has more information on Burtynsky and examples of his work.

There is a documentary film, Manufactured Landscapes, showcasing his work and exploring some of the bizarre places he has visited.

Burtynsky's own website is here.

Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for Young People

This book is pitched at young people but it's so clear and readable most adults would enjoy it too: it's art appreciation without the artspeak. Gregory O'Brien has chosen one work each from 45 contemporary New Zealand artists, and he outlines his thoughts on each one, in a fun and breezy style.

Story of a New Zealand River

This novel was written in 1914 and I expected it to be old-fashioned and dull. In fact it's quite a page-turner! Set on Northland's Otamatea River, it describes the journey upriver of an English immigrant to a remote logging settlement; her personal development in this alien setting is chronicled along with the development of the prosperous mill town.

The story has a number of features in common with Jane Campion's The Piano, and there have been allegations that Campion was heavily influenced by Mander's novel, and never acknowledged her debt. To me, there are a lot of differences between The Piano and Story of a New Zealand River...but you can judge for yourself.

I think Story of a New Zealand River may currently be out of print, but it's available from libraries, and you can read it online or download it as an e-book, here.

There's more information on author Jane Mander here.

Glenn Jones

New Zealand designer Glenn Jones has made a huge hit with his t-shirt designs on Threadless. There's an interview with him here, with examples of his hilarious work.

A nest of singing birds

The New Zealand School Journal started out 100 years ago as a textbook-substitute, but it has evolved into a cultural and literary treasure. So many great New Zealand writers and artists got their break with School Journal.

To celebrate the School Journal's centenary, the National Library is showing a selection of original art contributed to the Journal by such big names as Rita Angus, Colin McCahon, Louise Henderson, Juliet Peter, and many others.

The exhibition takes its name from Alistair Te Ariki Campbell's description of the Journal's office as "a nest of singing birds"; A Nest of Singing Birds is at the National Library in Wellington until the 21st July. You can read more about the exhibition here. And some historical background here.

And if you want to send your own original work to the School Journal, this is the page for you.

Vanishing Act

Most wildlife photographs show the animal clearly standing out from the background, but of course standing out is exactly what animals don't mean to do - their survival depends on blending in with their environment. The pictures in this book show animal camouflage: viewing these pictures is a game of visual hide-and-seek, trying to find the creature hiding in each image. More than that, it shows how inhabited empty-seeming landscapes can be!

Nights in the Gardens of Spain

Forget everything you thought you knew about Witi Ihimaera. In this, his most recent novel, he steps outside his usual Maori settings, and into white Auckland of the 1990s. David Munro is a white academic, born into privilege; he is a promiscuous homosexual who is happily married with two beloved daughters. Eventually his nights of casual sex with strangers, his "Nights in the Gardens of Spain", throw his life into chaos, and threaten to destroy his family. How David deals with the conflicts within himself and with the world are the substance of the book.

3-D Tintin

NZ's Weta Workshop, Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are working together to realise a trilogy of Tintin stories. I can't wait! Read more on Stuff.

Sense of place

I saw Picturing the Peninsula at the Christchurch City Gallery the other day, and it was fascinating. It's a collection of paintings, drawings and photographs of Canterbury's Banks Peninsula: you'd be amazed how diverse the images are. Standouts for me were paintings from Tony Fomison and Dean Venrooy, and a photograph from Mark Adams.

I looked online for more information on Dean Venrooy's amazing paintings, and this was about all I could find.

Encyclopedia of everything

The Encyclopedia of Life is an incredibly ambitious project. The object is to catalogue all 1.8 million known species of organism, in a web-accessible form. Inspired by Wikipedia, public contributions and mash-ups of already-availible material will form most of the content, but experts will check it for accuracy. The EOL will take a number of years to evolve, and will be an unprecedented public resource.