Saturday Morning for Saturday 11 March 2023

8.10  Gulchehra Hoja: speaking out on behalf of the Uyghur people

As a beautiful young TV star in the ‘90s, Gulchehra Hoja was important to the Chinese state: the acceptable face of China’s Uyghur Muslim minority, from the remote North-West. 

Then in 2001, Hoja did an about-turn, fleeing to the United States and working with Radio Free Asia, reporting on human rights abuses. By 2017, she was designated by China a terrorist, and placed on a most-wanted list. A year later, 24 of her family members disappeared at once, placed in state detention.

A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs is Hoja’s story, and an account the persecution of the Uyghur people, who in 2021 the US designated as having been subject to genocide. 

*A warning that while this is an inspiring story there is some content in this interview concerning genocide and discretion is advised.

 

8.35 River scientist Jon Tunnicliffe on releasing waterways from a stranglehold

Cyclone Gabrielle resulted in major shifts in our waterways, causing significant damage  - but it’s in their nature for rivers to move. 

Jon Tunnicliffe is a river geomorphologist who has worked on a variety of New Zealand and Canadian river systems. He studies our rivers’ response to sedimentary disturbance across a range of timescales, from post-glacial change to catastrophic changes in the wake of earthquake-induced landslides.

Tunnicliffe believes we need to release Aotearoa’s strangled rivers to lessen the impact of future floods, changing our approach to river management and making some key environmental law changes.

9.05 Peter Meihana: putting privilege in check

Have Māori been treated better than other indigenous peoples? Do they receive benefits that other New Zealanders do not? Many New Zealanders believe so, but it’s something historian Dr Peter Meihana of Massey University challenges. 

The idea of 'Māori privilege', Meihana says, goes right back to the 18th century. It’s used today, he argues in the same way it was in the 19th century: to maintain a power imbalance. 

Appearance has given Dr Meihana (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō and Ngāi Tahu) different experiences of of privilege. Born brown, he developed autoimmune disorder vitiligo (a condition in which the skin loses its pigment cells) and by time he was an adult looked Pākehā.

Dr Meihana’s short book Privilege in Perpetuity: Exploding a Pākehā Myth is published by Bridget Williams Books. 

 

09.30 Holli McEntegart: the art of postpartum care

Merging her work as an artist, mother and full spectrum doula, Holli McEntegart’s project Inhabit brings together mothers and their infants to examine how community, cultural and whānau postpartum care has changed in Aotearoa. 

Post-partum is the period after the birth of a child, and a time when many women feel isolated. A doula is a professional trained to work with a new mother before, during and after birth. 

McEntegart has a Masters of Visual Art and Design from AUT and her art has been performed and exhibited throughout the United States and Aotearoa. She first trained as a doula in New York after giving birth to her first child, and is now raising two young boys. 

Inhabit is on until April 1 in Avondale. For details on times and workshops go here.

 

10.05  Simon Armitage: the UK poet laureate on why poetry matters

It’s the moment every poet laureate of the United Kingdom must surely be on their toes for - the death of a monarch. And so it was that Simon Armitage published  ‘Floral Tribute’ last September, a poem spelling out Queen Elizabeth II’s first name twice, acrostically. 

In his recently published series of Oxford lectures A Vertical Art: On Poetry Armitage makes a case for poetry and the role of the poet in many different settings. 

Armitage is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds, and the author of more than a dozen poetry collections. Verb Wellington and British Council New Zealand and the Pacific have brought him to Wellington this weekend. He will speak in discussion with Aotearoa poet laureate Chris Tse, and headlines a showcase of poets. More details here.

10.35 Peter Lynn: a legend of kite design

Like many of us, designer, engineer and inventor Peter Lynn flew kites as a child, but by the time Lynn was 27, he’d started building one of the most important kite making businesses in the world. Now retired, he continues to devote his life to being at the forefront of kite design.

Peter Lynn Kites have invented the last seven of the world’s largest kites.In 1987 Lynn helped kickstart the new field of kite traction (think kite buggying, kite surfing, and snow kiting), including in 1990 inventing the first kite buggy - now a worldwide sport.

This weekend he’s flying at Steam Up Weekend at the Bushtown heritage site in Waimate, and March 17-19 will be speaking at WOMAD in New Plymouth.

 

11.05  Victoria Finlay: how fabrics are woven into our lives

Victoria Finlay’s latest book Fabric looks at  our relationship with textiles: from woven barkcloth in Papua New Guinea to the famous tweed of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. 

Finlay considers how ‘woven’ fabric is into our histories, vocabularies and everyday lives - from our very livelihoods to its use for sheer opulence, with plenty of exploitation and environmental waste along the way. 

Part of the story is Finlay’s own journey through grief and recovery, with the help and advice of her recently deceased parents.

Finlay is also the author of Colour: travels through the paintbox and the former arts editor of the South China Morning Post.

11.35 Livi Reihana and Amanda Kennedy: the unlikely unruly librettists 

In January 2019 the media were captivated with the rude antics of a holidaying British family, littering, stealing and being generally obnoxious. 

Opera New Zealand artistic director Thomas De Mallet Burgess was one of the public agog and hatched the idea to turn the story into an opera: The Unruly Tourists. Seeing award-winning music-comedy duo The Fan Brigade perform, De Mallet Burgess approached them to be the librettists. Without a note yet sung, it has become one of Aotearoa’s most controversial operas.

Livi Reihana and Amanda Kennedy are The Fan Brigade, self-described on their website as “stupid ugly feminazi bitches… or talented comedians taking the New Zealand comedy scene by storm (depends who you ask).”

The Unruly Tourists premieres at the Auckland Arts Festival March 22 to 26.

 

Books featured on this show

A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs
Gulchehra Hoja
Published by Hachette Books
ISBN: 978-1668629840

Privilege in Perpetuity: exploding a Pākehā myth
Peter Meihana
Published by Bridget Williams Books
ISBN: 9781990046346

A Vertical Art: on poetry
Simon Armitage
Published by Faber and Faber
ISBN: ‎9780691233109

Fabric: The hidden history of the material world 
Victoria Finlay
Published by Pegasus
ISBN: 9781639363902

Songs featured on this episode
This Women's Work
Kate Bush
Played at 9.35am

Slouching towards Bethlehem
Joni Mitchell
Played at 10.05am

Milk for Flowers
H Hawkline
Played at 10.35am