WORD Christchurch has launched its 2021 festival programme, with an array of events to challenge, excite and entertain the city from 25 to 29 August. This year’s events tackle both the near and the far – with an intensely local flavour and an innovative international component.
Earlier this year WORD announced that it was moving from a biennial festival to an annual event, in order to keep up with the ever-changing post-pandemic environment, and to meet the obvious hunger and demand for quality conversations and arts events in Christchurch.
Programme co-directors Nic Low (Ngāi Tahu) and Rachael King have worked together to create an exciting schedule of more than 80 events featuring over 150 speakers and performers.
Hard-hitting global issues will be at the forefront: Helen Clark appears in conversation about her work as co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, and will also appear alongside former Tampa refugee, Abbas Nazari, as his book looks at 20 years since New Zealand welcomed 150 of its refugees, including Nazari, who was a child at the time.
International writers will appear via digital link, but this is no ordinary Zoom call. In The Faraway Near, WORD has created a custom-built venue and bar inside Tūranga that brings the speakers to the audience’s tables via digital display, creating an intimate and more personal atmosphere.
The Faraway Near has the intimacy of a night at the pub with friends – and a favourite writer. Tūranga’s TSB Space will be transformed to create a pop-up bar with tables where you can grab a coffee or a glass of wine, and settle in for a session of deep storytelling and conversation with a special international guest – sitting life-sized at your table via freestanding FHD display.
Writers featured in the Faraway Near include: Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk; philosopher A. C. Grayling on the paradox of knowledge; Mark O’Connell, the Irish author of Notes From an Apocalypse; exiled Kurdish writer Ava Homa in conversation with Behrouz Boochani; Eliot Higgins, founder of open-source intelligence agency Bellingcat in conversation with Nicky Hager; novelist Hari Kunzru and award-winning Native American writer Tommy Orange.
“Given we’re in a pandemic and international writers can’t visit, we’ve relished the challenge of creating intimate digital events,” says Nic Low. “The Faraway Near is a bar where you get to book a table with your friends, with a superb international author seated at your table, life-sized and in real-time.
“We’re also looking to cutting-edge global political themes, exploring open-source intelligence agencies and the hunt for QAnon with Eliot Higgins, or the global pandemic response with Helen Clark, or the world of online conspiracy theory and ‘red pilling’ in the company of New York novelist Hari Kunzru.”
Other topics explored in the festival include a history of the Polynesian Panthers, living with climate change, domestic violence and mental health, but it’s not all serious. There will be plenty of playful events and activities for young and old.
Ngāi Tahu stories ground the festival in Te Waipounamu; Sue Kedgley discusses fifty years of feminism with Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel; Rebecca Macfie talks about her biography of trade unionist Helen Kelly; local hero Matt Brown discusses his journey to the creation of the She Is Not Your Rehab movement; Tā Mark Solomon launches his biography; Ross Calman discusses Te Rauparaha with Te Maire Tau; and we hear from Māori astronomy experts Rangi Mātāmua and Victoria Campbell.
In an exciting cross-festival and cross-oceans link-up, Scotland’s crime master Ian Rankin will beam in live from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is happening at the same time (4–30 August).
The WORD Festival is not just about books –– it also bring two original music collaborations: David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and Tiny Ruins come together in the magical world-exclusive show IF I WERE A STORY AND YOU WERE A SONG; and Marlon Williams, Ariana Tikao and Ruby Solly in KĀ WAI O TAHU, respond in music and story to the waters of Te Waipounamu.
In a royal first for the festival and in a New Zealand exclusive, WORD will beam in Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York from her home in Windsor, to talk with Nicky Pellegrino about the new romance novel based on her story and that of her ancestor.
With a spotlight on writers from Aotearoa, invited speakers also include: Patricia Grace on her new memoir, recent Ockham Book Award winners Airini Beautrais and Tusiata Avia, novelists Stephanie Johnson, Brannavan Gnanalingam and Paul Cleave, poets Tayi Tibble, Karlo Mila, Glenn Colquhoun and Kate Camp, and fiction-writers-turned-memoirists Charlotte Grimshaw and Patricia Grace.
WORD brings back ADVENTUROUS WOMEN with a brand new cohort of incredible women: Kyle Mewburn, Hinemoa Elder, Anjum Rahman, Emily Writes and Julie Zarifeh, hosted by Miriama Kamo.
“New Zealand is one of the few places in the world where we can still gather in person for a festival. We hope everyone will make the most of that opportunity, knowing the rest of the world is still stuck at home watching festivals on a screen,” says Nic Low. “We’re excited to have been able to concentrate on local talent, with a dozen events with a Ngāi Tahu focus in the mix.”
“The most important element in a festival is a sense of place,” says Rachael King, “and that is what we are most excited to deliver. You will not find a festival exactly like this one anywhere else in the world. The challenges we have faced have actually turned this into possibly the most exciting WORD festival yet.”
Tickets go on sale at 7pm, 6 July.
For tickets and more information, visit wordchristchurch.co.nz