WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Leviticus is named after the book from the Old Testament, which in part lays out the archaic laws of sexual morality. Most controversial is one commandment which, even in its slight variations of phrasing from one translation to another, has rippled appalling consequences throughout the rest of history: ‘18:22 – You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination’. Historia

HOROSCOPE | COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by László Reynolds (he/him) | @laszloreynolds | Contributing Columnist It is recommended to read your rising sign first, then the Sun after. You can read for your Moon sign as well, especially if you were born at night. Aries You’ve made it over the crest of the hill (hell?); any lingering extreme heat is fading in the rear view. What’s left is a lingering heaviness. If you look closer, though, the reason it’s so h

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959) Whether you’re burdened by imposter syndrome or choked by a creative block, if you’re an artist in a rut, seek the protagonist of A Bucket of Blood for reassurance that you’re not fucking up this badly. In this dark comedy, Dick Miller plays the nebbish Walter, a busboy at a beatnik café who doesn’t fit in with the so

THE HOT LESBIAN | COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by This Week’s Hot Lesbian, Wren Probett (she/her) @inkdogshirts | @hot_lesbian_initiative | Contributing Lesbian What could possess someone to wear a shirt that reads “Gay Dog” or “Dyke”? What must go wrong in a person’s life, for them to spend hours carefully carving those words from linoleum? Of all things, why a shirt? I mean, are you planning on wearing that on the bus? At the mall?? If you’ve seen my sh

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Jana Nee (she/her) | @jahncreates | Contributing Writer The darkroom in my high school art class was my creative haven. At sixteen, I spent most lunch breaks there, developing negatives from my film camera. I made strange, carefully staged images of fish heads with doll bodies. There were no creative constraints, and I embraced that freedom, experimenting and finding my voice through art photography. I learned to mix ch

Carrying Care KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by De Jana Sveistrup (they/she) | @dejana_sv | Contributing Writer Photos by Camden Jackson @camdak.g Studio space with hurricane fence displaying yarn collection, crochet panels and paintings. Photo by Camden Jackson Craft has a way of offering many metaphors to life, such as threads of connection, having a yarn, and unwinding. The art of craft is powerful in its ability to connect. After the resurgence of

Tohi Kumi Koloa KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by ‘Uhila M.L Jr (she/ her) | @uhila_nai | Contributing Writer The project Tohi Kumi Koloa, delves into the Tongan practices of ngatu barkcloth and kupesi embroidered relief stencil, as a lived document of my ancestors. The work is grounded in the Tongan way of thinking, making, and doing, while adapting to the present day. A practice that exists within and across the past, Tonga, and the present, Aotearoa

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Jeorja Duffy (she/her) @jeorjaduffy & Te Ra Awatea Kemp (she/her) @te.ra.kemp | Contributing Writers @herehere.co We, Jeorja Duffy (Ngāti Kuri, Sa’fanene, Pākehā) and Te Ra Awatea Kemp (Ngāti Raukawa, Te Ātiawa, Pākehā), both embrace craft at the heart of our art practices. Through generational craft, we utilise knowledge such as crochet and quilting in our personal artworks. Working with the handmade, we found common g

NEWS | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Associate Editor Friday, 8 May saw finance minister Nicola Willis announce they would abandon the Fees Free Scheme by way of Winston Peters, roughly eight years after its introduction in the first year of the Ardern government. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon claims that the scheme didn’t meet its goals, reflecting reports in 2023 that the rates of students at decile 1-6 schools enro

Toi Māori moving beyond gender TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Skye Lunson-Storey (she/they/ia) | Whakatōhea, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | @uku_rangi | Arts, Culture, and Te Ao Māori Editor The patience, collective nature, and tactile act of creating with my hands connect me to something larger than myself. In te ao Māori, mahi ā-ringa/mahi toi are not simply artistic practices; they are vessels of whakapapa, preserving pūrākau and carrying