Comedian and writer Jess Karamjeet is hoping her love of Neighbours will be the Trojan horse for her new show Redundant.

"We're all trying to kind of find some sound that links us together," celebrated New Zealand musician Neil Finn tells Culture 101 in an upcoming interview.

Aotearoa’s central arts funding body, Creative New Zealand, is majorly overhauling its funding structure, with eight new funds to open between March and August. The change follows the arts council’s admission its current arts grant system is no longer fit for purpose.

What can chairs reveal to us about our history?

There are sure to be seats in the new Objectspace exhibition and book The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa that’ll cause you warm bodily pricks of memory.

Arts and culture news from RNZ's Culture 101.

The activists who defaced an English version of Ti Tiriti o Waitangi at Te Papa last year planned their actions very carefully, says Cally O’Neill from the social justice action group Te Waka Hourua. "There's a bunch of precedents for art as activism and that was exactly the direction that we were going," she tells Culture 101.

Prolific playwright Sam Brooks has not one, but two plays premiering in Wellington and Auckland in February for Pride.

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different region to get the latest on the arts and culture scene. This week we’re at Waitangi.

Kiwis will be watching the next season of White Lotus even more closely, following the casting of New Zealand actor Morgana O’Reilly (Housebound, Mean Mums, Wentworth). The hugely successful dark comedy will be set in Thailand for its third season, following earlier seasons in Hawaii and Italy.

It may be 2024, but playwright Albert Belz (Ngati Porou, Ngā Puhi, Ngati Pokai) wants you to stretch like it's 1990. Dedicated to the pump of aerobics, Belz’s new play Hyperspace is an unapologetic 1990 nostalgia fest.