Around 100,000 people are expected at Western Springs Lakeside Park in Auckland today for the annual Pasifika festival.

Auckland Art Gallery director Chris Saines leaves next week for Queensland after 17 years of working towards the gallery’s expansion and rejuvenation. But he’ll be back one day, he tells Linda Herrick.

Pictures from the opening night of the Auckland Arts Festival performance by French pyrotechnical wizards Groupe F

Artist Ralph Hotere, who died last week, has been immortalised by a street artist in Auckland.

Just go see this. French pyrotechnical wizards Groupe F offer a superlative, splendiferous, explosive extravaganza. Artistic director Christophe Berthonneau and his team, and Red Leap Theatre, are to be congratulated.

Walking tours - especially those guided by a remote, apparently all-seeing, all-knowing central HQ - are full of tantalising possibilities: where will I be going? How will I know how to get there?

Regional polytechnics are important to their communities, and the National-led government is underfunding them, two Labour politicians say.

If you see Auckland Arts Festival artistic director Carla van Zon wandering around town over the next couple of weeks, give her a bottle of water and something healthy to eat to boost her stamina for the duration of the programme.

What Auckland's cultural scene does lack, when it comes to Ateed and Aucklanders in general, is a true appreciation of the goodies that are on offer on their doorsteps.

At the North Shore Woodturning Guild, Danielle Wright discovers a piece of the past with a link to the future

The body of artist Ralph Hotere arrived to emotional scenes at Mitimiti in Northland this afternoon.

With 11 days of fabulous events taking place during a celebration of all things fashionable, there's no excuse not to be involved in the Fashion in the Big Little City festival.

Restrictions at this year's kapa haka championships has led to members of the public criticising mainstream media for the lack of coverage.

In Mitimiti yesterday, John Martin was at the urupa, the cemetery where his cousin Ralph Hotere will lie when his body is flown by helicopter to the beachside marae.

Artist Ralph Hotere, 81, who was one of only a handful of people to be made a Member of the Order of New Zealand, died peacefully in Dunedin yesterday.

A series of Ralph Hotere prints are being exhibited at University of Canterbury this week in a tribute to one of New Zealand's greatest artists who died yesterday.

Tributes are flowing for 81-year-old sculptor, painter and collaborative artist Ralph Hotere, who died surrounded by family in Dunedin.

Ralph Hotere, one of New Zealand's most acclaimed and provocative artists, has died.

A Banksy mural at the centre of a controversial auction has been withdrawn from sale at the last minute, the council campaigning for its return to the UK says.