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Nau Mai, Haere Mai
Mā te pohewa mā te auaha hoki, ka whakapuaki ngā kura e huna ana. With imagination and creativity a hidden jewel can be revealed. Welcome to Toi Ōtautahi.

Nau Mai, Welcome to Toi Ōtautahi – The virtual arts office for Ōtautahi, Christchurch.

Toi Ōtautahi is a partnership project between Christchurch City Council, Creative NZ, Rātā Foundation, Mana Whenua, and Manatū Taonga Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

Christchurch has produced some of this country’s best known and most celebrated artists and artworks, and Ōtautahi continues to be a place where innovation and radical creativity flourishes. We are unapologetic supporters and champions for the significant role the city and its creatives have played, and continue to play in Aotearoa.

We want this site to celebrate all that is creative in the city and its wider environs and we want you to be part of it. Whether you’re a creative, an organisation, an audience member, a supporter or a visitor to this city, let us know what we can do to help make Ōtautahi the best city for creativity in Aotearoa.

Latest News
Performance

DJ Total Eclipse – Hip Hop Summit Special Event

As part of the Hip Hop Summit, the legendary DJ TOTAL ECLIPSE of The X-Ecutioners (NYC) is touching down and headlining for The Clubkingz Open Format Invitational…
Rap & Hip Hop
Events & Exhibitions
Te Matatiki Toi Ora: The Spring of Living Art: a Showcase of 50 years of Creativity
Join Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga for an evening celebrating 50 years…
Events & Exhibitions
Kanohi Kitea – Matauranga Māori & Circus Arts  2025
This free and fully accessible event is a Circability initiative to create a platform for Māori games and Circus arts to…
Circus, Ngā Toi Māori
News
Ōtautahi Filmaker Shamin Yazdani’s Short Documentary Premieres
Single and approaching a mid-thirties birthday, Iranian-born Ōtautahi Christchurch-raised filmmaker confronts the question she’s long avoided: should she freeze her…
Film and Moving Image
Performance
Black Grace Returns with Epic Double Bill Show
Christchurch, get ready for a new world premiere by Neil Ieremia entitled ‘If Ever There Was A Time’ alongside Paul…
Dance
Book Launch
Lorelei Jenner’s New Book ‘The Colourful & Slightly Exaggerated Life of Edith Merleau-Ponty’
A playful, beautifully crafted art book written and illustrated by local artist Lorelei Jenner has just been published and is…
Authors, Literature
Expressions of Interest for Central City Studio Space at Toi Auaha
Toi Auaha is calling for EOIs from local artists and creatives interested in hiring studios at this friendly central city…
Calendar of Events
16.10 – 18.10 2025

Free Theatre Presents: The Passionate Puritan

8:00 PM
Free Theatre invites you to the heritage Pumphouse to meet Jane Mander. Jane died in 1949 but comes alive for…
The Pump House
20.10 2025

Together – Art for Wellbeing, Canterbury Cancer Society

5:30 PM – 7:00 pm
The opening of: “Together – Art for Wellbeing, Canterbury Cancer Society”
Eastside Gallery, Linwood
23.10 2025

Te Matatiki Toi Ora: The Spring of Living Art: a Showcase of 50 years of Creativity

7:00 PM – 9:00 pm
Join Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga for an evening celebrating 50 years…
Great Hall, The Arts Centre
02.11 – 11.12 2025

Tiki Taniwha Aroha – at Chamber Gallery

10:00 AM
Mandy Joass’s practice has been shaped by a profound journey of reconnection with whakapapa, guided by the enduring presence of…
Chamber Gallery, Rangiora
06.11 – 08.11 2025

Hagley Theatre School Presents: Faust on Trial

7:00 PM
Faust on Trial – a new play by Josiah Morgan, Jonty Coulson, and Stella Cheersmith with Pedro Ilgenfritz.
Te Wa – The Space, 74 Hawdon Street

SPOTLIGHT ON: Christchurch Heritage Festival

SPOTLIGHT ON: Christchurch Heritage Festival

Her City | Women Who Built Christchurch

A tour of the homes of three iconic women who shaped Christchurch’s history through settlement, politics, and the arts.

Step into the lives of three remarkable women who helped shape Ōtautahi Christchurch.

This whole day tour weaves together the legacies of Dame Ngaio Marsh, Kate Sheppard, and Jane Deans. As you journey through their historic homes, you’ll discover how each woman’s vision, courage, and creativity were rooted in the very spaces they inhabited.

Their homes are more than buildings; they’re landmarks that are witnesses to the ideas, activism, and artistry that helped build a city and inspire a nation.

Opportunities
Opportunities & Proposals

Open Call: Eastside Gallery 2026

Artists are invited to explore the ways we echo and mirror or distort, bend and reshape what we see. Artists are encouraged to interpret the theme in any way they like and in any medium.
Visual Arts
Opportunities & Proposals
Call for Proposals: Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden
Established and emerging artists are invited to submit proposals to participate in our 13th Annual Autumn Exhibition which showcases the…
Sculpture
Jobs
Trustee – Court Theatre Trust Board
The Court Theatre is currently seeking to appoint a Trustee to the Board with Performing Arts or Theatre Industry experience…
Theatre
Opportunities & Proposals
2025 CLNZ Contestable Fund Grants: Applications are now open
In 2025, up to $75,000 is available to support strategic projects that demonstrate Aotearoa New Zealand publishing sector growth.
Opportunities & Proposals
The Big Idea is Open for Submissions, and They Pay!
The Big Idea, is calling for pitches from new writers!
Opportunities & Proposals
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Digital Product Design
The University of Canterbury invites applications for a full-time, continuing (permanent) academic position at the level of Lecturer or Senior…
Courses and Classes
Creative Watercolours -WEA
Learn creative watercolouring techniques with Rebecca Smallridge
Visual Arts

SPOTLIGHT ON: Ōtautahi in the News

SPOTLIGHT ON: Ōtautahi in the News

Christchurch may be home to the national Kate Shepherd memorial, but it is a different suffragette that the city’s Free Theatre company will introduce us to this week.

The “almost forgotten” life of Jane Mander (1877-1949) – a feminist, suffragette and novelist, whose novel The Story of a New Zealand River inspired Jane Campion’s film The Piano – will be depicted in The Passionate Puritan, which opens on Thursday.

From a theatre company that focuses on more avant-garde material, Mander will be played by Marian McCurdy, who says the story chimes well with the company’s interest in “exploring historical material”.

Read Victoria Meakin’s story in The Press here.

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