Nau mai, haere mai, and welcome to the Part Two of our 10th Anniversary season of the Asian Aotearoa Arts (AAA) programme!

Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts (CoCA) was once again proud to present our 2024 programme centering Asian Tauiwi arts, whakapapa, whanaungatanga and cultural wellness in our current times.

Part One of our anniversary programme (AAA2023) successfully ran from 25 Sep - 6 October 2023. Part Two (AAA2024) – and our final Asian Aotearoa Arts programme – continued to respond to the programme’s theme of Past, Present and Futures, reflecting on and celebrating community connections that have developed over the past decade with free public events taking place in Pōneke Wellington between 14 April-10 May 2024.

Events included:

Sun 14 April, 11am – 8pm: A South Asian & South East Asian Solar New Year Celebration with our friends at Mabel’s Restaurant, 66 Tory Street. Mabel’s designed a custom menu and there were special guest talks by Brannavan Gnanalingham and Rose Lu, dance performances by the Burmese Karen Community and others, DJs, family-friendly craft activities plus art and design works for sale by Otsu, Chills, Tanuki&Co and many more.
18 April- 10 May: New Illuminations: 10-years of Asian Aotearoa Arts, was a group exhibition at The Engine Room Gallery featuring Xin Cheng, Hanna Shim, Linda Lee, Tessa Ma’auga & Wai Ching Chan, Wailin Elliott, H Y Chai, Ant Sang, Emiko Sheehan, Kathryn Tsui and Robbie Handcock, responding to AAA2024’s anniversary theme of Past, Present and Futures.
Commissioned artworks by Marc Conaco, Tessa Ma’auga & Wai Ching Chan, Abhi Topiwala & Bhavesh Bhuthadia, who once again collaborated with local legends, Great India Restaurant.
We were also thrilled to announce a new partnership for the 2024 programme with Urban Dream Brokerage (UDB). AAA were in residence at UDB’s space at 115 Taranaki St during the programme, and held a range of events and workshops in the space, commencing with a launch party on Saturday 20 April, from 6pm to celebrate and promote the new Satellites Aotearoa Asian arts archive in Pōneke.
We celebrated 7 Years of Migrant Zine Collective with an exhibition at Te Pikitanga Gallery at Massey Library.
A wānanga was held at Te Rau Karamu Marae from 26-28 April.
We hosted a Chinese Typography documentary film screening and New Zealand Chinese identity design kōrero on Monday 29 April.
We also ran a range of workshops from vocal expression, cooking and conversations with Soil of Cultures Collective, archiving, zine-making and more during this final season. Explore the full programme here.

Creatives from all genres, levels of experience and cultural backgrounds were warmly invited to participate in our exciting programme that explored, celebrated, and showcased diverse Asian Aotearoa arts practices.

Our programme was free and open to everyone. Those with Asian whakapapa were especially encouraged to join.

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Huge thanks and appreciation to our funders, Massey University and Creative New Zealand in continuing to support our mahi. Thanks to Te Rewa o Puanga, School of Music and Screen Arts for technical support.

AAA 2024 Organising Team:

Kerry Ann Lee (Creative Director and Producer)
Herbert Bartley, Jon He, Bronwyn Holloway Smith, Gia Espelita
2024 Logo Design and feature illustration by H Y Chai