Freshwater ecologist, environmental science researcher and activist Dr Mike Joy is a well known outspoken voice in the need for our society to make radical changes to deal with our major environmental crises. 

He is one of Aotearoa’s foremost public scientists, but also a supporter of artists and art projects as a way of raising awareness to enable change.

Lucy Godoroja unfastens the miniature world of wonder and the surprising history of the button. In her book, All Buttons Great and Small.

Culture lover and curator Rosie Dawson-Hewes is passionate about accessibility in the arts. It led her to collaborate with a new Bay of Plenty art patron Fiona Menzies to create A Seat at the Table at this month’s Tauranga Arts Festival (19-28 October).

Henderson artists Bernie Harfleet and Turtle Sarten make visible the things we often find uncomfortable to talk about. Urgent social issues all around us: like family harm, mental health and poverty.

These self-described creators of 'Community Activated Art Action' do remarkable things. Since 2002 Bernie and Turtle have been staging installations that involve public participation to raise awareness and encourage action.

Cat Lovett is a New Zealand textile designer with a passion for the sustainable. Her interest in design has led her to live in Mexico's textile capital, Oaxaca. There she has been closely studying the region's ancient textile traditions.

Self declared pirate queen Mandy Mayhem gives Maggie Tweedie a slice of life in Waitati. The celebrant, MC and Dunedin City Councillor gives the regional wrap into the cultural happenings of the bustling seaside village.

It took until the 1970s for Toi Māori (Māori  art) to develop a tradition in clay (uku). One that in part looks back to an ancestral Lapita pottery tradition across the Pacific. 

Today, the collective artist-led rise of this unique ceramics movement stands as a striking development in contemporary Māori art: Ngā Kaihanga Uku, the makers with clay.

Jo Ann Firestone is a  teller of tales, a producer, host, and co-founder of Couch Stories. A sold out storytelling series that has taken the Nelson Arts fest by storm.

Rather than Boys II Men, it’s Boys II Middle Age: playwright and actor Michael Galvin has written a play about boy bands, with a difference.

Museums are really theatres of political power, says Maia Nuku, curator of Oceania at one of the biggest: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

Nuku (Ngāi Tai) is interested in the way museums can provide greater access and in the Big Apple that has meant creating a home for Māori and Pacific Island peoples and artists.