Hikurangi, 20 minutes north of Whangarei, is an old dairy and mining town known for some of the most specular limestone formations in the region. 

It's a "one coffee one pub" kind of town, says Craig Cooper, who with his partner runs a surprising retail and culture enterprise in the town called Hiku. 

As the t-shirts they've produced says, they specialise in "Art music and cool shit."

It's commonly assumed that Māori women don't carve. Carving is a tapu occupation with its own tikanga and ritual. Women have often not been allowed to be present while a carver is working. It's a practice that continues on some building sites today.  

But tikanga varies and changes. The binary gender division with carving has often been broken. Last century, male mastercarvers like Pineāmine Taepa, Cliff Whiting and Paki Harrison taught women in toi whakairo, and women carvers have been written about by everyone from Sir Apriana Ngata to more recently art historian Ngaarino Ellis.

But that doesn't mean it's easy. A new collective of wāhine Māori carvers, Te Ana o Hine, is creating a safe environment to support women who want to learn the craft. Te Ana o Hine - which can be translated as the cave of Hine - have recently established a carving studio with Tāmaki Makaurau art gallery Te Tuhi. 

Today Mark is joined by one of Te Ana o Hine's members, artist and curator Holly Tawhiao. Of Ngāti Tīpa, and Tainui descent, she is a Elam fine arts and Museum studies graduate. Known as a cultural advocate for Hamilton, she joins us from from the Kirikiriroa studio.

Two years ago this month RNZ National's Culture 101 was launched. And a guest on our very first show, introducing comedy radio drama series The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie's Botanarium was writer and comic Duncan Sarkies. Since then Duncan has published Star Gazers, his third novel, which is about the collapse of democracy amongst a society of alpaca breeders.

At the end of this month Duncan is at the Word Christchurch festival. He's running a masterclass on 'Writers as Explorers', reviving his series I'd Love to Have a Beer with Duncan and in Cabinet of Curiosities will be talking with other writers about weird and wonderful obsessions.

Duncan Sarkies joins Mark Amery on Culture 101.

Pasifika people make up almost 17% of Tamaki Makaurau Auckland's population, but Pasifika women in particular are considered underrepresented when it comes to the professional comedy scene. It's something Cook Islands-New Zealand comedian Rhiannon McCall with Samoan New Zealand producer Sarah Richards are looking to help change with a new free programme in South Auckland for women later this month.

Va'ine Fresh will cover the basics of stand up, improv and stagecraft, culminating in a "low stakes showcase" at Mangere Arts Centre at the end of September.

A 2024 Billy T Award Nominee, Rhiannon McCall is a familiar face from television. Everything from Seven Sharp and Shortland Street to recently My Dream Green Home, Don't and Guy Montgomery's Spelling Bee. This year for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival she brought an entire town to life in a completely improvised western The Good the Bad, and the Completely Made Up!

Rhiannon McCall joins us in the Auckland studio to play Fast Favourites.

Arts News for 3 August 2025

Films covered include: Prime Minister, It was just an accident, Grace, Toitu Visual Sovereignity, Workmates, Bati, One on One: John and Yoko, Maya, Give Me a Title, Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy, Not Only Fred Dagg, DJ Ahmet, and Weedeaters.

This week we are heading to the south side of the Hokianga harbour, in Northland to the town of Rawene.

As private funding organisation The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi celebrates 25 years of supporting artists, what's changed with arts patronage?

Notes from a Fish is a surreal comedy crime caper set in the murky world of the exotic fish black market.

A new exhibition in Tamaki Makaurau hosted by the New Zealand Fashion Museum is set to showcase and celebrates the art of knitting and all yarn-based fashion creation.