Celebrate success

The scholarship, research, creative and practice-based achievements of NICAI staff, alumni and students are regularly recognised in awards, promotions, accolades and grants earned both in New Zealand and around the world. NICAI acknowledges the ongoing commitment of its staff and students to excel across the disciplines and celebrates their successes in the local, national and international arena. Congratulations to you all.

• Senior Lecturer in Dance Studies receives Teaching Excellence Award
  Dr Nicholas Rowe, who is also the Associate Dean (Postgraduate) at NICAI, is one of just seven academic staff of The University of Auckland to receive a 2011 award for excellence in teaching. His Early Career Excellence in Teaching Award will be presented during the May Graduation ceremonies.
  
  Along with his teaching, Dr Rowe is highly regarded for his research and publications on dance and its role in society, most notably in traumatised Middle East communities. His 2009 feature film The Secret World premiered at the Sydney Arab Film Festival and he is author of Raising Dust: A cultural history of dance in Palestine.
  View an Australian TV documentary about Dr Rowe's work

• Architecture student "Highly Commended" at 2011 NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Award
  Min Tian was one of the two highly commended entrants in this annual design competition, which is contested by the top four final-year students from each of New Zealand's three architecture schools.
  
  Tian's proposal for a haven for honeybees sited above a Shanghai freeway was entitled “Adipaetopia: The Co-Evolution Between the Born and the Made”. The Award judges described it as "an engaging and plausible contemporary scenario which deals with both urban and environmental issues".

•  Estrella Quartet wins coveted Royal Overseas League Arts Scholarship
  The winner of the 6th Annual Pettman/ROSLARTS International Scholarship was the Estrella Quartet (Bachelor of Music students Somi Kim, Gemma Lee and Cindy Tsao and graduate Judy Lee, who play two pianos with eight hands).
  
  The total value of the Scholarship is more than $50,000. It includes return flights from New Zealand to London, accommodation and hospitality for four weeks in the UK, and a cash award of $1000 each.
  
  The quartet was selected to present one of four “Emerging Artists” concerts at the University’s School of Music, gained first place in the annual Auckland Chamber Music Society Competition in July, and went on to win this scholarship, competing with ensembles nominated by the Universities of Canterbury, Victoria, and Waikato at auditions held on 19-21 November.
  
  While in the UK, the quartet will perform concerts in London at the Royal Overseas League, St Martin-in-the-Fields and St. James’s Piccadilly, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They will also have lessons with prominent UK-based teachers, make visits to major UK conservatoires, participate in international summer schools and masterclasses, and attend cultural events including the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, concerts at Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, London; and the Edinburgh International Festival.
  Find the Estrella Quartet on Facebook

• Elam lecturers feature in film screenings at Centre Pompidou
  A curated selection of moving image work made by New Zealand artists, including Elam lecturers Gavin Hipkins and Alex Monteith, was recently screened at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
  
  This Fine Island, a postcolonial ballad by Hipkins that revisits Charles Darwin's journey to the Bay of Islands in 1835, had its first screening in Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, an event that aims to create a space between new cinema and contemporary art. In Hipkins' adaptation, Darwin's nineteenth-century travel writing in The Voyage of the Beagle becomes a vehicle for present day tourism, travel romance, and racial othering, against the backdrop of New Zealand's lush landscape.
  
  Alex Monteith's 2.5km mono action for a mirage, 2011, was also included in the programme.

• Two ICNF fellowships to School of Architecture and Planning staff
  Professor Andrew Barrie and Dr Dermott McMeel have been awarded fellowships to develop strategic activities with network partners through The University of Auckland's International Central Network Fund (ICNF).
  
  Professor Barrie runs the School of Architecture and Planning’s public programmes, including public lecture series featuring high-profile international architects. He recently established a visiting professorship – the International Architect in Residence – the first such programme at a New Zealand architecture school. To develop this work, he will visit The University of California Los Angeles, The University of California Berkeley, and The University of Tokyo to learn about these institutions' well-established visiting professorships and to recruit future visitors to Auckland.
  
  Dr McMeel will visit the University of Edinburgh and the University of Southampton to develop co-taught courses and research that investigates new opportunities created by emerging technology in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban infrastructure. This work will form the basis of research-led cross-disciplinary courses to be taught at the universities, addressing current and future environmental problems.

• Architecture postgraduate student wins World Habitat Day 2011 photo competition
  Architecture PhD candidate Seyyedeh Ghazaal Ghoreishi has won first prize in the University’s 2011 World Habitat Day photo competition, which was open to all students, staff and members of the public.
  
  Entrants were asked to submit no more than three entries with a relevant caption and title, highlighting their interpretation of how climate change affects everyday life. This question was in line with the theme of this year’s World Habitat Day, “Cities and Climate Change.”
  Read more

• NICAI students take some of the top honours at Exposure Postgraduate Research Exposition 2011
  This annual research exposition of the work being undertaken by our research students is presented by The School of Graduate Studies and the Postgraduate Students’ Association (PGSA) at The University of Auckland.
  
  In the Live/Multimedia category, postgraduate Dance student Tia Reihana won first prize for "He Huahua te Kai? E, he Wai te Kai. Are preserved birds the best food? Ah no! Water is"; second prize went to Anna Bate, who is also a postgraduate in Dance, for "So Fake it's Real"; and Saeid Nazari Adli, who is a PhD student in Planning, took second prize in the Poster Competition for his research project entitled "Comparing urban form of historic cities on Silk Road".

• Elam graduate Florian Habicht takes his new film to Hollywood
  Florian Habicht, film director and Harriet Friedlander Residency recipient, had his feature Love Story chosen for the 2011 DGA/SDGNZ Director’s Finder Series Screening in Hollywood on 4 November. The programme showcases undistributed independent feature films from New Zealand and their directors.
  
  Love Story had its debut at the New Zealand International Film Festival in July this year. Watch this space for the international success of this quirky, endearing and distinctively New Zealand film.
  Read more on Onfilm website

Celebrate success archive