Captions by Jake Ebdale. Edited by Imogen Staines. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016. REFLECTIVE UKULELE MUSIC Ngamotu, New Plymouth. Bounded by Te Ati Awa to the north and Ngaruahine to the south. A place where our snow-capped mountain, Mt Taranaki, can be seen from our black, glistening beaches, all in one synchronized, magical vision. REFLECTIVE MUSIC When I was invited by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery to be artist-in-residence here a few years back, I really didn't think I wanted to come. But little did I know how much this art residency was going to change my life. I very quickly fell in love with the black, glistening sands. I fell in love with the dark, star-studded skies and our native bush. And I also fell in love with my partner, Mike. And I'm now a part of a community that is becoming more accepting of its diversity day by day. In this episode of Neighbourhood, we'll share the vision of an architect born in Kerala. I mean, the opportunity of being involved with a marae for a hapu that hasn't had a marae for over 150 years, it has been tremendous. A woman from Ukraine dishes up some of her grandma's legacy. Everyone loved` loved to come to our house, and that's how I` I learned from her that cooking is actually collecting people together, gathering together, and it's more sharing than eating. We'll sample a taste of home, Algerian style... When I was in London, Nabil's mum came and visited, and she doesn't speak much English, but she sort of showed me how to cook ` sort of. (CHUCKLES) Those are the best. She was saying, 'She's not listening to me!' BOTH LAUGH 'What's wrong with this daughter?' ...and enjoy some inherently Irish hospitality. # As I walk tonight # through the city... # of (SINGS IN GAELIC) # There's a saying ` 'around the kitchen, and mind the drawers.' And everyone got one song each. Your party piece ` sing for your supper, as it were. That was the way, from a traditional Irish point of view. I'm Reuben Paterson, and this is my neighbourhood. REFLECTIVE ACOUSTIC MUSIC This is where my love affair with New Plymouth began ` in Pukekura Park, 52 acres of loveliness smack bang in the middle of the city. When I was artist-in-residence here, I created a 4.5m-high gold glitter tree called the Golden Bearing, and over 200,000 people came to visit this tree in situ in Pukekura Park. Never before have I created an artwork that would change my life forever. It's a tree that brought me here to New Plymouth, but it's also a tree that introduced me to the wider community. Sometimes all you need is a few new connections to make you feel like you're at home. (STRUMS GUITAR) I'm Anand. I live here with, um, my wife. I married Siobhan. Uh, she's from here in New Plymouth. And, uh, we have a daughter, Elsie. She's 3. (PLAYS REFLECTIVE TUNE) I suppose a bit of a tough start to life. My parents, they met when they were young. My mum was 19. My dad was 18. And, um, we were born in Dublin, me and my sister. And, um, my parents broke up, and my mum` I lost my mum when I was 13. So we` we both went from Dublin to Roscrea, County Tipperary, and we were brought up by our grandparents. It was obviously a sad time. Um, the small town had a sense of community, and that's what I'm really lucky to have experienced ` is a sense of community. And they look out for you, and there's a saying where ` 'it takes a village to raise a child', and that definitely went on in Roscrea in` in the early years ` in my teens. New Plymouth is where my sister came to live. So I've been living here, uh, 14 years. NZ, you can't get any further from` from Ireland ` it's 12,500 miles away. And, um, when you're that far away from home, the good thing is that your culture rises to the top and you live that every day, um, and it's something I'm very proud to be, is Irish, living in NZ. And, uh, yeah, I carry that with me all the time. INDISTINCT CONVERSATION, LAUGHTER So, for the last couple of years I've been involved in running Pop-Up Gigs, and they have been a great success. INDISTINCT CONVERSATION The idea of Pop-Up is that the gig can pop up anywhere. So it could pop up in a house; it can pop up in a theatre; basement, barn, wherever. INDISTINCT CONVERSATION Now, what's extra special about the Pop-Up Gig is it started with a potluck tea so the musician can start engaging with the audience, making friends, um, sharing stories. It just` It` It helps to relax everything and, um, contributes to the performance. LAUGHTER The principal is, um, providing a, um, nurturing environment for the music, and it's something that's happened many many years ago in` in Ireland in terms of, uh, a congregation of people in the house and home. There's a saying ` 'around the kitchen, and mind the drawers', and, um, a wonderful time of people coming together. Everyone got one song each and` and` You know, your party piece ` sing for your supper, as it were. So that was the way, from a traditional Irish point of view. How's everybody doing? CHEERING, APPLAUSE Well, this, um` this is a wee song that I wrote, um, earlier this year for the commemoration of the 1916 Rising back home. (STRUMS UPBEAT TUNE) APPLAUSE # As I walk tonight # through the city # of (SINGS IN GAELIC), # the strangest thought comes over me. # So, Anand, locally he's, um, promoted myself personally quite a lot, and he sets up all these gigs and runs the Singer Songwriters, um, once a month on the last Friday. And he's done heaps for me personally but heaps also for the` the Taranaki music scene as well. MEN SING HARMONY: # How does your garden grow? # Roots, tidy little rows. # I` I first met Anand when I first came to NZ about 10 years ago. I hadn't played to anyone. I` I turned up to the Singer Songwriters night here, and he was just one of the most welcoming people. He was so, um` so warm, and he came straight up to me afterwards and says, 'Oh, I've got a gig for ya!' He's just one of those guys that's just` He has more faith in other people than they perhaps have in them. He is a vital part of this community. I don't know what we'd do without him, really. # I was burnt in the pockets, you've still got a hold on me. # Just recently I received a New Plymouth Citizens Award for my service to music, uh, over the last, uh, decade here in New Plymouth. Apparently one of the youngest recipients of that award, and I'm very honoured, uh, to` to have received that, uh, from the mayor's office. It's, um` It's great to be acknowledged. I carry people who have shaped me, my` my life and where I'm from, Roscrea and Tipperary, in that award. I really think it's great when a region gets known or noted for having a great arts scene or a music scene, and that's my ambition, is to keep going with that, to keep getting recognition for New Plymouth and Taranaki in terms of a, um` a good reputation for music. We've often discussed, 'Would this stand up if Anand Rose wasn't here? Would any of this stand up?' And we would try to, to honour you, but I don't know if it would ever stand up the same, to be honest. Thank you. Hear! Hear! Happy days. Yeah. INDISTINCT CONVERSATION, LAUGHTER DUCKS QUACK One of the special gifts that the Golden Bearing bestowed upon me was my beautiful home and the beautiful native forest that surrounds it. I'm of Scottish descent on my mother's side and of Maori descent on my dad's. My dad was raised as one of 13 children in the small town of Matata, but raised to live in the Pakeha world. So when he moved to Auckland, we were a bit at odds with how we were going to be raised in this Pakeha world too. Fortunately my grandmother vested us in the art of raranga ` making bowls out of flax that we could eat from. This set me off on this journey of making piupiu out of flax and hunting out estuaries where I could dye those muka threads black. No wonder I love it here. And these elements of my childhood still find their way into my art practice today. BIRDS CHIRP REFLECTIVE MUSIC This cafe was an idea that Nabil and I came up with because I wanted somewhere where I could take the children as a family to go and eat with no worries about, you know, 'Is it halal?' What kind of tagine? I think it's worth trying the lamb` lamb chunks. I was born in Algeria. As a Muslim, you'll need to have certain, uh, meat that's prepared certain way, and it was quite hard in New Plymouth because of the size of the city. It was quite hard to find what we needed. I do the cooking in this cafe. (LAUGHS) I do the tasting. BOTH LAUGH I'm making mhadjeb, which is a type of savoury pancake but with a filling in it. Mhadjeb is one of my favourites. I can see it in` in my head as I was coming back from school, and you could smell it from` As I walk into the door and walk up the stairs, I could smell ` 'I know Mummy's making mhadjeb today. It's cool. Lunchtime will be awesome.' (CHUCKLES) When I was in London, uh, Nabil's, um, mum came and visited, and she doesn't speak much English. But she sort of showed me how to cook ` sort of. It was` It was quite hard to understand her, but, um, we got through, and Nabil helped. I think his` his translations were, um, edited quite a bit. (LAUGHS) Those are the best. She was saying, 'She's not listening to me!' BOTH LAUGH 'What's wrong with this daughter?' I had a bit of pressure on me at the time, yes. It is hard work. I've tried it the first time, when it was, like` You've got to do this for, like, a good 15 minutes to` to get the dough together and` and make it ready for the rolling. The dough's finished now. And then we're just going to roll it into balls, and I'll rest it for an hour and take it home and finish off the process, which is rolling it out for the kids. Right, so, you start from the middle, and you make it thinner, and you push it out. OK. So I just have to, like, push it out. OK. Yeah. Our children are being brought up Muslim. Pretty good. I think we can almost put that on the tray. We decided quite early on that Muslim is a good religion to start them off with. They can make their own decision when they're old enough. Mum, can you help? I've made quite a few big holes. OK. (CHUCKLES) Do I need to get another piece of paper from there? I think one of the ways of bringing the culture to the house is the dishes and by telling them the stories of` of the background of the` of the recipe, it will put into them some of that culture. Um, I think we're going to put onions, tomato,... < Daddy put some harissa in there. Cheese ` sometimes cheese. Algerian food, I'd say, is, uh, rich. Some people think because we're an Arab country, we should have, like, uh, same as the Middle East, but it's totally different. It's more of a south European and a mix between African and Berber, which is the original people of North Africa. So there's quite a variety in there as well. Who is that? Hi, guys. Nana's here! Heyyy! Welcome to dinner life! Uh, tonight we've got Sue, my mother-in-law, uh, here for dinner. Mum was a bit nervous to start with when I first told her that I'd met an Algerian in London on my OE. She investigated, um` um, the Muslim religion and then was a bit more concerned just because of the` there's so many rules involved in it. But once she met him, all those concerns disappeared. He's, you know, the perfect son-in-law, so... (LAUGHS) Naw. She's quite stoked to have him now. Use your knife, please. > MUM: Is it`? Is it`? Is it kosher if I put tomato sauce on it? LAUGHTER More like, uh` Maple syrup. My mother-in-law would like it because I've made it and sustained my family, which is important. I think my mum will think that she made it. LAUGHTER She'll probably say, 'I wonder who make this?' < That's pretty high praise. Cos it tastes just like hers. REFLECTIVE MUSIC New Plymouth is home to the Len Lye Centre at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, a sublime piece of architecture. Len Lye was a pioneering kinetic artist, and his work and collection is housed here. Len lived much of his life overseas, but he did spend time living here in New Plymouth. I love the fact that this is the only museum in NZ named after an artist and that Len's legacy can live on here. I dearly miss my family and my friends in Auckland, but I am really committed to making new memories here in New Plymouth. I guess it's the same for all new arrivals. So, I've been living in New Plymouth for about 22 years now. New Plymouth has definitely changed since I've come here. I'm not saying that's because of me, but I'm` I've observed the changes. It's got a lot more of the creative side of things happening. I think we're punching way above our weight, and in that sense, I'm very proud of the fact that I'm part of this company that's helping shape the city. My name is Murali Bhaskar, and I was born in a place called Kadungalloor on the west coast of South India. I'm an architect. Colour is a significant aspect of what I can bring into my designs. I'm also interested in bringing art, illustration and graphic` graphic art into my designs. So an example of that would be the restaurant Pankawalla. Every so often in the` in the life of an architect, you come across a project that really connects you, and this is one of those projects. This is about connecting traditional Indian food in a contemporary setting. So the` the challenge for me was how do you bring the two together, and it was an article in the paper that I read about Mahatma Gandhi and his grandson, who, along with Martin Luther King's nephew, were visiting Parihaka, and it just struck me as an opportunity to link India with Taranaki. So, this wall that you see is all about the differences of culture portrayed in a very simple, um, contemporary sense. It's almost like a visual gallery, and people can sit, and` and while they're eating, they can look and read and see the rich colours and the textures of India as part of the experience. I've managed to design it as almost a gallery with a eatery attached to it. A lot of the projects that I like doing are more in the civic and community and cultural side of things, like little art galleries and the marae. There's a` There's a new marae being built in New Plymouth. We've been working with the Ngati Te Whiti Hapu Society for over 10, 12 years. So, where we're standing now is where the wharenui comes out, and the` the paepae and the atea is around this area, so these couple of trees will disappear and you'll see the` the very prominent facade of the wharenui, uh, in glass. The glass is also about the philosophy of, uh, being inclusive and demystifying what, uh, a marae or a wharenui is all about. It brings me back to my grandparents' house and my grandmother's days where we used to have marae-type sleeping, uh, accommodation in our ancestral home. Brings back memories of Grandmother sitting and telling us stories from mythology every night, and the rush was to get to the closest mattress beside my grandmother, uh, so we can hear her a lot better. Um, this project has been quite humbling. I mean, the opportunity of being involved with a marae for a hapu that hasn't had a marae for over 150 years has been tremendous. It sort of cements my wanting to be part of the community, um, and calling New Plymouth home, um, and making New Plymouth a` a better place. I live in the central city of New Plymouth ` in the cultural precinct, so to say ` with Eloise, my partner, and my 3�-year-old twins, Milan and Anjali. We live in this four-storey building that we purchased about 15 years ago. Can you see any boats there? Look, can you see boats? Look. I can't see any. Apartment living is still catching on in New Plymouth. It's not something that, uh, everyone's in favour of, because they're all still used to the old, uh, quarter-acre block and, uh` and a` a family lifestyle home. A lot of the buildings around here, our company has had some element of, uh, involvement, and, uh, we're generally very happy to be looking out and seeing some of those works, um, you know, around where we're living. It's not often that in the life of an architect, you find that the city is growing around you in the right direction, and I'm very proud to be part of that, and I'm very proud to call this my home. REFLECTIVE ACOUSTIC MUSIC For 20 years now I've been working with glitter and diamond dust as my art material, and it's a hard one to work with because it just gets everywhere. But it's a material that I enjoy, because it challenges the assumptions people think glitter should have ` that it should be related to child's play or even drag. When my father passed, I created a painting for him using the Maori imagery of kowhaiwhai and in doing so was able to honour him but also begin my art career as a full-time artist. As time has gone by, I've been able to honour my mother's Scottish heritage by painting paisleys and florals and patterns found on the fabrics of my grandmother's dresses. I inherited this special little bible from my grandmother. It's a bible that was made in 1640, and unfortunately all history has been lost with her passing. I guess I realise now more than ever that it's so important we do hand down these stories for generations to come. REFLECTIVE PIANO MUSIC So, this is a photograph of me when I was probably about 2 or something like that. It was in Siberia, and, um, I'm wearing a traditional scarf that old women in Siberia was wearing centuries ago, which is really quite funny. My name is Olena, and I was born in Russia, which was Soviet Union at that time. Mum was Russian, and Dad was Korean. Dad was sent to Crimea. So he was, uh, serving the navy in Crimea, which was Ukraine at this time. Crimea, it was at the shore of the Black Sea. And, yeah, so it was a big move ` uh, different climate, different lifestyle. Everything is different for me. My father still lives in Crimea, which now is part of Russia. Um, unfortunately we do not share the same political views, so we do not discuss, uh, with my father the political situation around Crimea. He worked all, uh, his life for the regime, and he believes in it. The situation between Russia and Ukraine is really a raw topic. A few years ago Russia, uh, took Crimea. No one believed that it's going to be a war between Ukraine and Russia. It's like say to a Kiwi person that you're going to war with Australia tomorrow. You have to shoot people who are wearing Australian uniform. I feel like I'm Ukrainian simply because I'm a holder of Ukrainian passport. At the moment, um, nationality is not nationality itself. It's more like a civic stance. I'm, uh, still Russian, uh, in a` in a lot of ways, uh, and I got it from my grandmother. This spoon, um, holds a lot of meaning for me, simply because it was given to me by my mum, who passed away. And, um, my grandma used similar spoon in her cooking, and it's, um, uh, decorated in traditional Russian decoration style called khokhloma. It is an amazing thing because, um, it doesn't get hot. It's wooden, so when you taste something with it, it's nice and cool. And you see it's worn, because it has been used a lot. When I hold this spoon, I remember how my grandma was cooking, and the smell was amazing. It was so warm and natural. Everyone loved` loved to come to our house, and that's how I learned from her that cooking is actually collecting people together, gathering together, and it's more sharing than eating. I do some cooking classes. It's called Lozhka. In three languages it means a spoon ` in Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian. And my motto is to share culture spoon by spoon. Thank you, everyone, for coming today. What we are cooking today ` we are cooking traditional Russian salads ` uh, two of them. One is called vinegret, and also we cook, uh, olivye. Right, shall we start? INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS So, is beetroot eaten quite a lot in Russia? Cos that's in borscht, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yeah. Um, we like to joke that we add beetroot everywhere. BOTH CHUCKLE It's not true, of course. (CHUCKLES) Most of all, uh, with sharing my culture, I enjoy the spirit. I think the spirit of togetherness, of knowing each other, communicating with each other, isn't it lovely? And just for` for a short moment, we become a family and we became the same. We accept each other. Mmm. I might ask everyone, um, where you're coming from. Oh, I'm from NZ, Auckland. Oh, cool. And, yes, born and bred. I come from Georgia, um, next to Russia. What about you, Raksha? I'm from South India ` a place called Bangalore. There were lots of traditions in Russia that, um, people still follow up. Like, for example, we really like parties, and for partying, uh, it does not mean getting drunk or eating too much. It's, um, more about getting together and sharing your stories, being supportive, being heard. I believe that food is a very good way to unite. Oh, it's been fabulous. Olena is just such a welcoming person, and it's been really lovely to meet all these other people as well and, um, you know, to learn a little bit more about Russia and the food culture there. When we're gathering together, it reminds me of home. It's so lovely. It's like being with my grandma and having these beautiful parties in Siberia. So thank you very much for sharing table with me. I take my piece of bread, and I want to wish everyone ` priyatnava appetita! Do you want to repeat? LIGHT LAUGHTER Priyatnogo... ALL: Preyatnogo... ...appetita! ...appetita! Well done. Awesome. Start eating! (CHUCKLES) WAVES CRASH In these last few years, I've really come to the realisation that our West Coast beaches have probably inspired my choice of glitter and diamond dust as an art material more than I thought. It's just that beautiful way that when the sun hits black sand, it glitters and shines. New Plymouth is a small town, and diversity can be very noticeable. But what that difference brings to a city can only make it bigger, brighter and happier. REFLECTIVE MUSIC Captions by Jake Ebdale. Edited by Imogen Staines. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016.