NIcky Hager Mike Joy -Speaking Truth to Power @ Mahara Gallery Round Two

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 63

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

This is a quick reminder that Round Two of our local Forum on Speaking Truth To Power is on again this weekend.  A lot of interest was picked up  through this blog and this showed up with a packed Mahara Gallery on Saturday afternoon. The talkfest ran a good half hour over time with the floor taking over the conversation.

Major themes emerging were concerns over global warming and its ties to current laissez faire economics. Then of how it might be possible to organise to disrupt this. This was an issue that loomed large, underlining as it does a wide sense of distrust and disillusion with current political orthodoxies. But the problem is not a simple one – how to sustain a tenable organisational structure, while avoiding the same jurassic pitfalls.  Many also expressed concern over the obscene wealth discrepancies that now exist in the world.

 

Councillor K(Guru)Gurunathan

With two articulate Asian-Kiwis on the panel, a cultural theme also emerged, and this is probably a worldwide phenomena and that is how immigrants bringing new cultures into this country, felt like outsiders to local Maori/Pakeha traditions.

 

Oscar of the day probably went to Kiwi filmmaker Gaylene Preston who got caught in the  traffic jam caused by half the country returning home after a night on the tiles in Wellington. This followed the thrashing the Kiwi one day cricket team dished out to the poor old Poms at the Cake Tin (Wellington sports stadium) in the world cup, (All over in the twelfth over.)
 

But Preston made up for her lost time in speaking eloquently and without rancour about issues that worry us all and often underpin her films – the loss of our sense of community, of our shared humanity – of our connection to and empathy with, each other.

 

All this was passionately held together by the very able Bianca Begovich…

 

Alister Barry

So it’s back to the Mahara this Saturday 28 February with you all, where your fires will be relit by Filmmaker Alister Barry, Researcher & writer Giovanni Tiso, Local Kaumatua Ani Parata and Monetary Reform Advocate Amanda Vickers.

Track we were listening to while posting this - airport music at the mall we are ashamed to admit - but its free wifi so there's the trade off. 
Jill Studd's Blog
Contact Us