Evening programme:

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5:30pm‍

Guests arrive

5:45pm‍

Mihi whakatau to welcome artists and guests, and formerly open the gallery space

6-6:30pm

Gallery viewing, with wine served

6:30pm

Poetry performances begin

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The Poets

Hana Pera Aoake

Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Mahuta, Tainui/Waikato) is an artist, writer and mum. Hana Pera is a current PhD candidate at AUT, who works primarily as a writer, and researcher utilising ceramics, film, sound, textiles, performance and writing to tell stories about the whenua. They are the author of three books A bathful of kawakawa and hot water with Compound Press (2020) Some Helpful models of grief with Compound press (2025) and Blame it on the rain with no more poetry in Australia. (2025). Hana Pera's ceramic work features in Te Atamira's exhibition Let the Honey Soak Through.

Liz Breslin

Dr. Liz Breslin is a writer, editor and performer of Polish, Irish and English descent, now living in Ōtepoti Dunedin in Aotearoa New Zealand. Liz’s poem collections are Show you’re working out, (Dead Bird Books, 2025), in bed with the feminists (Dead Bird Books, 2021), winner of the Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems 2020, and Alzheimer’s and a spoon (Otago University Press, 2017). A spoken word poet, an academic, a story writer and a zine maker, Liz values community and conversation in the creation of words.

Talia Marshall

Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) is a Dunedin-based writer. She has had work published in Poetry magazine, Landfall, Sport, North & South, Mana, Canvas, The Spinoff, Newsroom, Pantograph Punch and with City Gallery. In 2020 she as the inaugural Emerging Māori Writer in Residence at the IIML at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, and in 2021 she won the Newsroom Surrey Hotel Writers Residency. Whaea Blue (2024) is her first book

Julian Noel

Julian Noel (Ngati Whatua/Ngati Torehina) is a graduate from the VCA School of Drama in Melbourne. He worked on stage, television and film before his creative instincts led him into entrepreneurship. But even with global business success, Julian felt called to something deeper—a return to storytelling, cultural roots, and systems change. He now lives in Tāhuna, where he has co-created a one man play, launching this year at Nelson and Dunedin Fringe festivals. He also writes and performs spoken word poetry and storytelling.

Bethany Rogers

B.G. Rogers is a writer running (and swimming) wild in Tāhuna Queenstown. Primarily an author of short stories and poetry, her work has been published internationally and occasionally listed for prizes. Her debut short story collection, Kaleidoscopes in the Dark (2022), is inspired by fairytales and dark Northumbrian folklore.  

Click to learn more about Let the Honey Soak Through.