RICK'S REEL RECOMMENDATIONS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai  & Letterboxd   | Film Columnist Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988) Don’t get mixed up here: I don’t mean ‘ Chocolat ’ (2000). Not the shlocky rom-com starring Juliette Binoche as a travelling chocolatier who brings love back to rural France with the power of sweeties, the DVD which you find on op-shop shelves next to Hayley Westenra CDs. I mean the lesser-known ‘Chocolat’ , about a nati

SPORTS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Luke Fisher (he/him) | @lukefish7__  | CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST My first encounter with the concept of climate change was seeing the bumper stickers on my primary school bible studies teacher’s van. Climate change is just a load of hot air. It’s always been hot. Aged seven, I didn’t have a clue what these meant. I honestly thought the first one was nothing more than a scientific fact. But fast forward 14 years (good god), and the phrases

FEATURE | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Elise Sadlier (she/her) | @elise_sadlier | Contributing Writer Illustration by Skye Lunson-Storey  (she/they/ia)   | @uku_rangi E tōku Whenua,  Do you hold a place for me still?  My ancestors are pressed into the soft moss of the Mangaoporo Valley I circle home like the Kārearea always swooping, never landing It is the east and you are the sun.  I spent a month of my summer this year at home, in Gisborne. While I was there, my friend

ARTS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Ken Faber (they/he) | @_kekeno_ | Contributing Artist The End We Are Together confronts the internal biases rooted in the ideology of the Anthropocene - Eurocentrism, chronocentrism, and anthropocentrism - clawing at its reifications of the innate sin of humanity in causing our extinction. It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.  Egg tempera is a naturally occurring emulsion, a nonbinary combination of o

TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written By Ivy Lyden-Hancy (she/her/ia) | Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wairere, Samoan (Falefā), Tongan (Vava’u) @tekaraipiture | Contributing Writer Kōkōwai, Whenua, Mauri. When I think about whenua and its connection throughout history, I think of kōkōwai. Kōkōwai carries the colour of papa’s first breath. A deep, iron-rich red that binds Māori to the land, to their whakapapa, and to the pulse of mauri: the life force that threads through a

FEATURE | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Sanskruti Banerjee ( she/her) | @san._.banerjee  | Contributing Writer Here’s a peek Inside Mount Eden’s New Dessert and Drink Spot! Nestled in the heart of Mount Eden village, Kiwi Dose is a family business that is quickly becoming a new go-to spot for students and locals alike. Whether you’re looking for a quick pick-me-up between lectures, a late-night study location, a casual date spot, or simply somewhere to grab a dessert with f

FEATURE | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA AUT Ventures | @aut_ventures   |   ventures.aut.ac.nz When we think about caring for the environment, we often think about what we can see; forests, rivers, wildlife. But what if understanding the health of our whenua starts with listening? At AUT’s School of Engineering, Computer & Mathematical Sciences, researcher Dr Amin Barzegar is exploring exactly that through KōreroNet , a project that uses sound to better understand what’s happening in o

The value of physically experiencing environments FEATURE | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Polly Wenlock she/her | @p0lly2001 | Contributing Writer Australia looks to be a land of sun-baked influencers.  It looks like  rolling surf,  blue skies,  gold sand.  It looks just like the reels you scroll endlessly and wistfully on your 30-minute lunch break. But how does Australia feel?  Australia feels like sand in every crevice, under every nail.  Australia sounds like the chat

The tears of Ranginui TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Skye Lunson-Storey  (she/they/ia) | Whakatōhea, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | @uku_rangi   Arts, Culture, and Te Ao Māori Editor Concrete weeps. Steel remembers. Water carries the weight of what we’ve buried. When rain falls in Tāmaki Makaurau, it carries the memory of wetlands drained, rivers forced underground, and land reshaped by colonial infrastructure. My recent artworks explore these relationshi

NEWS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Caeden Tipler (they/them) | @caedentipler  | Contributing Reporter It’s the biggest entertainment news story of the decade - Warner Bros. put itself up for sale late last year, leading to a public bidding war between two industry giants: Paramount Skydance and Netflix.  The ensuing battle was worthy of Hollywood.  Paramount successfully launched a hostile takeover, backed by the billionaire Ellison family. The studio and its very determi

NEWS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Liam Hansen they/them | @liamhanse.n | Associate Editor The university experience isn’t moulded to every student’s needs. It varies from course to course, but the overreliance on readings, tests of rote learning, and reflections tend to serve the needs of most students fine . But the number of students who feel like they’re working against a brick wall has increased year on year, and with AUT’s cohort of domestic and international stude

EDITORIAL | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Tashi Donnelly she/her | @tashi_rd | Editor We forget how unpoetic English can be as a language until we encounter words like ‘whenua’. Those words that say what English would need ten words to describe. Words like ‘wabi-sabi’ or ‘schadenfreude’. Translated into English, ‘whenua’ could mean ‘land’ or ‘homeland’. It could mean ‘Motherland’ or ‘Mother Earth’. ‘Ancestral land’ might come close. Another translation is ‘placenta’.  Whenu