GPJA #489 (1 of 3): Living wage rally Sat 10am

GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE AUCKLAND NEWSLETTER No. 489, JANUARY 24, 2014

WHAT’S ON IN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND

A Living Wage is a Whanau Day – tomorrow, Saturday, January 25, 10am-3pm

Saturday 25 January, Rugby League Club, Moyle Park, Bader Drive, Mangere. The purpose of the Whanau day, organised by the Living Wage, is to bring together the community to participate in a social event with our families, and experience what can be achieved if we earn a Living Wage of $18.40 an hour. It is a day of free food, fun and music for the whole family. See attached poster.

January 24-26, 2014

CLOSE THE WAIHOPAI SPYBASE NOW! Organised by the Anti-Bases Campaign, P.O. Box 2258, Christchurch. E-mail abc www.converge.org.nz/abc

Saturday, January 25, 10am, Nativity Church Hall, 76 Alfred St, Blenheim

Blenheim public meeting on the morning of Saturday January 25th, on the wider issues of spying, to put Waihopai into context. We see this as a continuation of the 2013 protests and meetings about the infamous GCSB Bill (and its companion TICS Bill). SPIES AND LIES

WAIHOPAI AND GLOBAL SPYING. Speakers at that public meeting will be Steffan Browning MP, John Minto and Warren Thomson.

ABC. Anti-Bases Campaign, Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand. abc / www.converge.org.nz/abc / https://www.facebook.com/AotearoaABC

Saturday, January 25, 1pm, Gus Fisher Gallery, top of Shortland St.

UNION MURALS ON DISPLAY. Rachel Mackintosh from the EPMU will discuss the significance of Dennis Knight Turner’s 1940s murals for the trade unions that commissioned them next Sat, Jan 25, 1pm, at the Gus Fisher Gallery, top of Shortland St.

“… Echoes from the past are resonating around. The Gus Fisher Gallery is showing the work of Dennis K. Turner, the mystery man of modern painting in New Zealand. In the 1940s and 50s he was a prominent figure. Then he left the country and largely vanished until, late in life, he was seen in some small exhibitions here that had little impact.

“His career began when contemporary art was a minor activity in Auckland, where it was impossible for a serious artist to gain a living from painting. The only time he appeared in the newspapers was when he was fined 10 shillings for working at his trade in public on a Sunday.

“Some of his early works were murals, in particular a series he painted for Auckland trade unions around 1948. Surviving examples are on show in the foyer of the gallery. They are redolent of the period with strong, determined, mostly male figures – carpenters and builders, transport workers and agriculturalists, all working strenuously and caught in statuesque attitudes. The colour is subdued but rich and the forms sharply delineated. They have a force similar to that of the great Welsh muralist Sir Frank Brangwyn, an excellent example of whose work was on the stairs of our National Gallery before it became Te Papa.

“The murals were encouraged by R.A.K. Mason, one of our greatest poets, who was also a union official and editor of the communist magazine People’s Voice. They reflect a time when there were close links between artists, poets, novelists and the extreme left-wing of politics. The tone is reflected in a mural of a muscular worker carrying a red banner lettered with ‘UNITY’…

“Many of the works would be remarkable in any time or context but here they take on a special significance as a record of a time and a courageous but unregarded talent.”