This occasional bulletin offers a panoptic of events, happenings and things to look at.
First of all let’s all celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – 2024! See: tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/te-wiki and reomaori.co.nz/
FOMO: THE INTENSITY OF CONFERENCE SEASONS
September has been wild with major events. First up was the World Green Infrastructure Congress held in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (go Zoë Avery!).
Also held recently were the Climate Change and Business Conference (9-10 September) and the Property Conference (11-13 September), and this week is the turn of the annual Association for Resource Management Practitioners (RMLA) conference being held in Ngāmotu New Plymouth – a summary of the programme here [Word doc].
Looking ahead to October, Motu Research’s new Senior Fellow Stuart Donovan is coordinating short courses on Urban Economics in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (7-9 October) and Ōtautahi Christchurch (10-11 October). More information here.
Things to add? Let media@urbandesignforum.org.nz know.
GOT TIME FOR MORE ART IN YOUR LIFE?
THE NZIA WARREN TRUST WRITING AWARDS
NZIA is on the hunt for illustrations for this year’s winning entries of the Warren Trust Writing Awards. There are five $500 cash prizes to be won, but the deadline is tight – 3pm Monday 23 September. Give it a go yourself, or send an alert to any design-minded people you know. If they don’t know, they don’t know. See warren-trust-awards-illustration
AUCKLAND
How to make a home has just opened at Objectspace and runs until 17 November. The exhibition explores the small universe of home and the material politics of the objects and adornment we live with over time. It stars responses to dwelling by 14 artists, makers and designers who have constructed impressions of private life backdropped by the anxieties of contemporary consumerism and housing instability.
HASTINGS
Allied to this month’s plethora of happenings for the Aotearoa Festival of Architecture a photo comp was run for photos from the regions of Gisobrne and Hawke’s Bay related to the theme Resilience. These are now on exhibition until 22 September as part of www.fotofest.nz/to-do/
LOOKING OVER AT AUSTRALIA
LIVING CITIES FORUM
This week an event billed as Australia’s flagship event for urban designers, thinkers and placemakers has a double billing for Melbourne (18 September) and Sydney (20 September). Do you know anyone who’ll be at this event? We’d love to publish any thoughts and insights from the programme here on UDF Aotearoa. See: livingcitiesforum.org Instagram @livingcitiesforum
NGV’s REIMAGINING BIRRARUNG – DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR 2070
An exhibition has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) that looks fifty years into the future with a series of provocations for the lands and waters of the Birrarung (Yarra River). Focusing on ecological regeneration, public access and connectivity across the catchment, this exhibition asks what it means to acknowledge a river as a living and integrated natural entity. See: reimagining-birrarung
