Challenging, captivating and culturally diverse .. eight Aotearoa artists from theatre, literature, and visual arts, to music,design and painting have joined their prestigious predecessors at the 2024 edition of The Arts Foundation Laureate Gala event.

And there was a special bond that emerged from this elevated group during Friday night’s (18 October) 24th edition of this celebration of artistic creativity - as all was revealed to a bumper crowd at Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in central Auckland. 

Each of the selected recipients are rewarded with $30,000 gifts funded by the generosity of art-lovers - as well as a $5,000 boost from One NZ.

An outstanding creator and leader in theatre and on television - Miriama McDowell - received the Sir Roger Hall Theatre Award for her evolving career as an actor, director, playwright and in recent times intimacy coordinator for stage and screen. 

Her key stage roles include productions at The Court Theatre, Q Theatre and Shakespeare’s Pasifika-inspired version of Much Ado About Nothing at the Pop-Up Globe - and has a string of awards for her film and television performances including Outrageous Fortune and The Brokenwood Mysteries alongside movies The Dark Horse and This Is Not My Life.

Speaking to The Big Idea of the occasion and the elevation to Laureate status, McDowell enthuses “Everyone is beautiful. We (the recipients) had a lunch yesterday and it doesn’t actually matter what form we take as artists - we all have many things in common. Luck, support, sacrifice, an absolute need to be one’s self not even considering art, but this is who I am in this world.

“There’s something solidifying being in this space with other artists. It doesn’t matter if it’s furniture making or sculpture or composing.”

The irrepressible writer and playwright Victor Rodger (ONZM) added to his collection of accolades with lashings of his famous humour, paying tribute to his much loved and understanding mum as he collected the Toi Kō Iriiri Queer Arts Award gifted by Hall Cannon.

He forged a career out dealing with issues of sexuality and race with boldness, candor and freshness from a young age with Sons, produced in 1995 along with a collection of his work, Black Faggot and Other Plays. His theatre producing entity, FCC, also brought to life Tusiata Avia's play Wild Dogs Under My Skirt for a ground-breaking run at the SoHo Playhouse in New York.

For many years Rodger paid the bills by writing for Shortland Street and told The Big Idea he was always given room to express himself being brought up by his solo mother Nora Williams in Christchurch.

“Even though I can look back in hindsight that I would’ve been a hideous obnoxious little shit sometimes .. I was not often a kid who was told to shut the hell up.

“I was an only child until I was 16 and I think that’s probably got a lot to do with it - given a free reign.”

There were tears from veteran designer/sculptor and furniture-maker Carin Wilson who was rewarded with the inaugural Laureate Design Award - gifted by the Crane Foundation -.   for his enduring career dating back to the 1970s which has flown under the artistic radar.

He was told he only had a minute on stage for his acceptance speech ..  and several minutes later noted “how are we going on the most important day of my life?”

Wilson’s commitment to design has been described as leaving a profound legacy, and he paid tribute to past masters “who taught me the art of the slow breath and to harness the energy of just being in the stillness.”

Horomona Horo is a composer and master musician known for his brilliance with traditional Māori instruments - taonga pūoro - and effortlessly switched between te reo Māori and English in receiving the Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Award, gifted by Jillian Friedlander.

He described his tough upbringing as one of ten children and leaving school at 15 - and how he has found his place for over two decades dedicated to this ancient art form, its international resurgence and the way he’s blended them so successfully into less traditional musical genres.

Musician and soundtrack composer Claire Cowan appeared on stage twice. Firstly as a pianist during a musical interlude from the awards alongside a bassoon, giant saxophone and drummer - then accepting the Joanna Hickman, Waiwetu Trust Award.

She’s forged a reputation as one of New Zealand’s most prolific composers with credits spanning concert, film and prime-time TV soundtracks.

Her skills have already seen her named as Best Classical Artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards and she’s collaborated as an orchestrator on the works of top artists like Benee, Marlon Williams, Leisure, Tami Neilson and Dave Dobbyn. 

Another remarkable story emerged in the literature field, as Alison Wong received the Burr/Tatham Trust Award.

She’s a mathematician turned novelist, and described how her Chinese background meant she didn’t even think about writing until her 30s. Wong has certainly created a unique place in New Zealand after a fellowship at the University of Otago and an epic debut novel As the Earth Turns Silver a decade in the making. It received international success and won awards at home while in recent years she co-edited A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand - the first-ever anthology of Asian New Zealand creative writing.

Dunedin-based visual artist Saskia Leek collected the Female Arts Practitioner Award - and told the captive audience she sees it as a collective prize “because you can’t make it on your own as an artist”. She was emotional as she dedicated it to her mum, describing her as one of the most creative people.

Gifted by Liz Aitken, Foggy Valley Aotearoa, the Award acknowledges her evolving career from using existing prints and op shop images as a starting point for diverse subject matter and shifting from Cubism to Abstraction. In 2022, she published Bordering on the Miraculous, a collaboration with poet Lynley Edmeades.

There were plenty of laughs as established artist Lonnie Hutchinson received the Visual Arts Award for her multi-disciplinary works across nearly 30 years, which are held in private and public collections at home and abroad.

The honour, gifted by Sonja and Glenn Hawkins of My ART, rewards her signature cut-out work using a range of materials, fusing the personal and ancient traditions with the effects of colonisation. 

She joked the financial boost could fund more work, or may be a new roof on the house and “has been a real lifesaver at this stage of my career. Or then again - I could buy a nice new electric car!”

Hutchinson has created a number of public commissioned works acoss the motu, including Hamilton Gardens, Auckland’s Britomart, Central Ōtautahi and most recently the convention centre Te Pae with an illuminated artwork named Hana.

Her distinctive creations can be found in the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu, the Hocken Library Dunedin, the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia.

The depth, dedication and exceptional talent of these eight very different artists has expanded the 130 strong Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate alumni. Their share of of $280,000 certainly helps and will nurture future endeavors, while they’ll always cherish the memories of being on this special stage together.

And the winners are ..

Alison Wong (Cantonese (Jung Seng/Zengcheng 增城) New Zealander) – Literature

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Burr/Tatham Trust Award

Carin Wilson (Kahui Whetu Ngā Aho -  (Mataatua, Ngati Awa, Tuhourangi) – Design/Sculpture

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Design Award, Gifted by the Crane Foundation

Claire Cowan – Music

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Joanna Hickman, Waiwetu Trust Award

Horomona Horo (Ngapuhi, Ngati Porou, Taranaki) – Taonga Pūoro/Composer

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Award gifted by Jillian Friedlander

Lonnie Hutchinson  (Ngāti Kurī ki Ngāi Tahu, Samoan (Faleilili)) – Visual Arts

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the My ART Visual Arts Award, Gifted by Sonja and Glenn Hawkins

Miriama McDowell  (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi) – Theatre

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Sir Roger Hall Theatre Award

Saskia Leek  (New Zealand Pākehā) – Visual Arts

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Female Arts Practitioner Award, Gifted by Liz Aitken, Foggy Valley Aotearoa

Victor Rodger ONZM (Samoan (Iva), Scottish (Broughty Ferry)) – Theatre

2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate receiving the Toi Kō Iriiri Queer Arts Award, Gifted by Hall Cannon