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Zia Ravenscroft When I first moved to Te Whanganui-a-Tara, I was entranced by the diva on the green pedestrian crossing lights around Cuba Street. A hand on her hip, hair piled high, strutting across the street like she owns it. Because she does. This is Carmen Rupe, the Queen of Wellington, New Zealand’s most famous transsexual. Arohanui, Carmen xx is a new exhibit at Wellington Museum and the first to celebrate her incredible life. I had the honour of being shown around by

Students who started university in 2024 and are graduating this year probably don’t know this, but you’re not really supposed to have the same Salient editor for three years. The last person to edit the magazine for more than one year did so in 2000 and 2001. So, yes, it has been a while. And, thanks to a slightly strange series of circumstances that brought me back to the job in 2025, you very nearly got rid of me. After three years in this job, I have learned a lot about jo

Susannah Crawford In the dining room of my family home in Christchurch, a black‑and‑white photograph hangs on the wall. Four men stand on an icy Himalayan ridge, their tents pitched on what looks like a forty‑five‑degree slope. The ridge is on Thamserku—a steep, fluted giant rising 6608 metres above the Khumbu in Nepal. Every Everest Base Camp trekker sees its dramatic profile from Namche Bazaar, but almost none will ever stand on its summit. Only six confirmed ascents have

Hanadi Hammad Al Bakhas In Syria, water was never just water. It carried the taste of belonging. I was five years old in my grandfather’s garden in Homs. Summer wrapped the day in warmth. Butterflies wandered through the air, flowers leaned towards the sun, and my little cat followed me wherever I ran. I was the first grandchild in my mother’s family, and everyone treated me like I was something precious. I grew up surrounded by love, convinced that childhood would always fee

A Constructivist Case for International Dinner Parties Angela Ipock International Relations spends a lot of energy debating what states want and why they fight. But one of the field's more interesting insights—one that constructivist theory puts at its center—is that neither wants nor identities are fixed. They are built. States, like people, come to understand who they are and what matters to them through interaction with others. Identities and interests are not given in adv

Pedro Hay If you’ve ever found yourself at a party, completely lost for something clever and interesting to say, perhaps you’ve tried sneaking in your incredible insect knowledge by mentioning that most ant species can lift ten times their own bodyweight with ease. Not only would this make you look really weird, but it’s also a lame fact. You should probably excuse yourself from the conversation at this point. If you want to really be the life of the party, tell them about t

Charlie Lehmkuhl Realising I grew up poor was not something I expected to happen at uni. Before I moved to Wellington, everyone told me the same two things about becoming a university student. First, they warned me about the hills—which I was NOT prepared for. Secondly, they told me how poor I was going to be. So I assumed we would all be in roughly the same situation: super fit from climbing the hills and flat-out-broke from trying to afford rent and food. Instead, I am s

Zara Boon "Act your age." While it might not be said to me explicitly very often, it's heavily implied. Look, I know I'm louder than most, and not just in decibels. I wear overly bright colours and have interests that a lot of teenagers would scoff at for being childish. I’m open about those interests, and love talking about them. I have little to no social anxiety anymore, and I throw compliments like confetti. At the end of each trimester, I give my lecturers tiny 3D-prin

As Salient’s unofficial Canadian correspondent, I’ve been writing far and wide. I even managed to write an entire satire piece on my flight from Vancouver to Quebec City. But one habit I’ve picked up on my travels has nothing to do with writing for magazines. It’s postcards. Yes, postcards: the outdated mode of communication used exclusively by old people, or left at the scene of a crime so the grizzled detective knows where to look next. I have sent upwards of 15 postcards

Medha Sharma “You laugh a second too late.” It happens so quickly that nobody notices. During my first week at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, I slipped into a tutorial a few minutes early, hoping it would be easier to find somewhere to sit. A tutor made a joke. The room erupted in laughter almost instantly. I understood every word they had said, but not the cultural reference behind it. By the time I pieced it together, the conversation had already moved

Emily Malcolm and Clay Joy Smith If you are fed up with economic greed, the insane power of corporations, and the lack of local, face-to-face conversations—and believe the solution lies in learning, community-building and people power—welcome to Critical Signals. Critical Signals is a three-month programme running until the end of October. The idea is to bring together communities, technologists, artists, activists, and researchers to discuss collective changes we can make to

Wellington is the melting pot of emerging bands & musicians, with notable talents such as the sounds of JQMIE, Mia-Nina, and Half/Angel. However, none have made waves quite like C.O.W., the hottest new Kelburn band. As of publishing, they have released their latest and only single, “Thank You Salient! (Feels Good On The Clit, Mate)”, alongside a full length music video. This magazine was given an exclusive interview with the elusive yet talented bandmembers—Edie Moore (19), P

Jemimah Long Before you start reading, remember that I am one person in the disabled community who is hard of hearing. I do not speak for everyone with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). I am an APD advocate. I am proud of being hard of hearing and having APD, but I am not going to give you a warm, fuzzy, feel-good version of my experience. I do not want to sugarcoat it—though I will try to strike a balance. I was diagnosed with APD at 13 years old. Soon after, I got hearin

Pluto Rennie Nobody notices when the tea towel is replaced. They notice when it isn’t: when it becomes damp, vaguely smelly, and functionally useless. But when a clean one appears, the flat carries on as normal. Nobody asks how it got there. The tea towel has simply, almost magically, replaced itself. Of course it hasn’t. Somebody noticed it needed changing, knew where the clean ones were, put the dirty one through the wash, and returned another to the kitchen. It is a very

Gemma Bennion Dear [ One in ten women. On this occasion, me.] Your internal ultrasound does show signs of likely endometriosis. Please make an appointment to discuss the next steps. Kindest regards, Dr. [Bright eyes. Funny tie.] As the bus rattles into Wellington, I remember how I’d fought myself the day prior not to ask the ultrasound tech to buy me dinner first. Ah well. She hadn't seemed the joking kind. There I was, on my way to be told that short of a laparos

Kaitlyn Mclean (she/her) - Ngāti Uenukukōpako, Ngāti Whakaue, Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Kāi Tahu “We should vote because they expect you not to.”—Dr Ria Holmes Unless you’re pushing 30 like Nanny Shay, this year might be your first or second chance to participate in a general election. And if you’re sitting there thinking—“Why should I care?”—fair enough. Politics can feel like a bunch of people just arguing on reels about things that have nothing to do with you. E

Tayshon Yates (she/her) - Ngā iwi ō Muriwhenua, Ngāpuhi With our kāhui of nine Ngā Taura Umanga tauira, we hitched our waka and made our way to Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato ki Tauranga Moana to attend Hui-ā-Tau—Mana Motuhaketia Te Ao Māori, hosted by Te Puna Tahua Toa. The kaupapa was centred around celebrating rangatira who bring a Te Ao Māori worldview into the modern worlds of business and finance. For us as tauira, this was more than simply attending a hui. It was an oppor

Shay McEwan (She/Her) - Te Whānau a Kai, Ngāti Pāhauwera, Ngāti Porou C.W. Suicide There’s a particular darkness that belongs only to the hour before morning. It’s not the darkness of midnight. Midnight is settled, complete; it asks nothing of you. The hour before morning is different. The sky is still dark, but somewhere beyond what you can see, something has already begun to change. I think there are moments in life like that. They rarely announce themselves. There’s no rev

Manaia Barns (he/him) - Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau, Ngāti Rangitihi, Te Arawa Whānui In September 2025, 50 people shuffled into a lecture theatre at Te Aro Campus. They had just come walking from a pōwhiri a few meters away to take their seats. Once everybody had settled in, the kōrero began, and with it, Te Whakaturanga—The Māori Architecture and Design Symposium. To be Māori in certain spaces is sometimes to make space for Māoritanga where there is none. This is the case in the

Temepara Reihana (she/her)—Ngāpuhi nui tonu, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa “Tem”—short enough, easy enough. And just like that, in a second, my beautiful name was silenced for 16 years—all to please the white man’s ears. But I never wanted it to be this way, But my mama said, “It's easier for them this way.” And I understood, because her mama had taught it to her that too. To make yourself smaller and soften your reo, was second nature for three generations. Every tea

Phaedra Chin (she/her) - Te Arawa, Te Aupōuri Savannah Cowan (she/her) - Ngāpuhi, Ngāruahine, Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Kauwhata Kō ngā tahu ā ō tapuwai inanahi, hei tauira mō āpōpō. The footsteps laid down by our ancestors create the paving stones upon which we stand today. This whakataukī prompts us to look back on the achievements and legacy of Ngā Rangahautira and the way our history continues to inspire Māori law students. As Ngā Rangahautira celebrates its 40th anniversary

Ciara-June Edwards (she/her) - Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Porou Since the day I was born, my mum and dad have been my best friends—obviously. They have loved me, supported me, and believed in me through every chapter of my life, from Tauranga to Rarotonga, to London, and all the way back around the world again. They raised my siblings and me with everything we could have ever needed, but more importantly, they gave us everything they never had. They pushed

Ox Matiu - Ngāpuhi Being takatāpui at Te Herenga Waka feels lonely. We are spread across different disciplines, different research, different whānau. Perhaps this is the institutional design: to keep us separate so we don’t organize too readily. I hadn’t realized this loneliness I felt until I attended my first postgrad class: a Māori-majority cohort and, most importantly, four other tauira takatāpui. There’s an old English proverb that you cannot lose something you never had

A collaboration of Matauranga and Science, could it mean a new future or a replaying of the past? Rebekah Tolhopf (she/her) - Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Te Whakatōhea Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei’ Seek the treasure you value most dearly; if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain’ A classroom not made for us. A teacher praising the ways of the coloniser while standing on land whose stories they do not know. For generations, the c

Tommy Niha (he/him) - Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara Mai i Te Kore ki Te Pō, mai i Te Pō ki Te Ao, mai i te pōuri ki te māramatanga, ka puta ko Tāne, ka puta ko Hineahuone, ka puta ko te ira tāngata, ka mauri ora ai tātou. Kei aku nui, kei aku rahi, kei aku whakataparahi ki te rangi tēnei e mihi atu nei. Ko Tommy Niha tōku ingoa, he uri tēnei nō ngā marae maha ō Te Tai Tokerau, hoinō, ko ōku iho pūmanawa ko Ngāti Hine, Ngati Whātua ki Kaipara, Te Parawhau me Ngāpuhi anō hok

By Ngāurupā Davis (any/all) - Ngāti Kōpaki, Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, China, Scotland, England For many years, the student union building and the room which houses the Hunter Lounge have provided refuge for those who champion te reo Māori. And if you are thinking I’m referring to the refuge of waipiro and a fuzzy head, e kāo. On 14 September 1972, the Māori language petition was delivered to parliament. Over 30,000 people vowed that the government, and the nation, must

Maddy Roberts (she/her) - Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa Ariana Roberts (she/her) - Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou For many psychology students, studying psychology means thinking about the communities we belong to and the people we hope to support one day. Māori and Pasifika continue to be disproportionately represented in adverse mental health outcomes while remaining just a small proportion of psychology students and registered psychologists. We, as the Māori an

Ashton de Vos, Oscar Lawrence The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is all about skateboarding. It’s about dropping in, grinding on rails, not giving a f**k. It serves as a love letter to skater culture. So, why, in later installments, do you play as the guy from Jackass riding a bull? The Golden Years Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, developed by Neversoft Entertainment, released in 1999 on the PS1, N64, and Sega Dreamcast. It met raving reviews, and a Metacritic score of 92. Tony Hawk

An autopsy of design in VUWSA campaigns Reuben Smith Once again, it’s that time of year. It’s the time of vaguely recognisable faces plastering the university noticeboards. It’s the time of randomly discovering an acquaintance of yours has a passing interest in student equity. It’s the time of having your desperate study session interrupted by a flurry of hub-based speeches. It is the time of the VUWSA elections. This annual tradition has always deeply interested me. For

Kaleb Evans-Lao When I think about the new AI data centre planned for Makarewa, I think about how I would have responded ten years ago to the idea that a revolutionary new technology was being built in our own backyard—one that promised to completely change our way of life for the better. I would have been excited. I’ve always had this notion that new technology automatically meant progress, change, and better living standards. But in recent years, that optimism has waned. An

White Supremacy in Academia: The Killing of Jason Arday CW: Racism, Self Harm Orlando Bright On 24 July, the first of a staggering 249 newspaper articles were written about Professor Jason Arday, surrounding accusations of plagiarism. On 14 August, just three weeks later, he was found dead in his home. This was not significant because he was an academic at a top ranked university, nor because he was autistic or young, but because he was Black. Jason’s death tells a story.

Achim Hanne This may be obvious, but the role of an MP is fundamentally different to a typical job. You work weird hours, commute across the country, and risk losing your job every three years. Even if you make it through selection and become a party’s candidate, your employer is not some manager or company, but the voters that put you there—many of whom may look no further than the party logo beside your name. For that reason, MPs’ work histories rarely receive much attentio

Achim Hanne If you have paid any attention to international media over the past few weeks, one British by-election may have caught your eye. Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform UK Party and MP for Clacton since 2024, resigned his seat amid parliamentary scrutiny of his finances including an investigation into an undeclared £5 million ($11.54 million NZD) gift. He immediately announced that he would stand again in the resulting by-election, casting the contest as a ch

Emma Bradfield Picture this: it’s a busy Saturday evening shift at a Wellington restaurant. There’s glassware to polish, drinks to run, and orders to take—but I am standing in front of a customer who has been staring at the beer list for the better part of two minutes. Finally, he turns to me and says, ‘Do you have anything that isn’t this Wellington shit?’ People working in hospitality have been dealing with this sort of thing since the dawn of time. The serving wenches in

Freddy Jarman I heard my friend doesn’t want to vote in this election. It's fine—he goes to Massey. Still, it astounded me. I can’t imagine looking at everything that has happened over the past three years and deciding that abstaining is the best course of action. But he got me thinking about why somebody might not want to vote. The political world can feel exhausting to look at, let alone invest time in. This political indifference is present in so many people I talk to no

Jake Ellis Physical media is dying. I, for one, cannot wait to purchase a temporary licence for everything I ever buy. I look forward to the day Paramount Pictures and the ghouls who run it crack open my brain and rip Transformers One from my mind because they decided it wasn’t worth running on Paramount Plus, my FAVORITE streaming service. Sony just announced that, come January 2028, they will cease making physical discs for new games released on PlayStation. This comes righ

Naomi Waxman When I talk to my friends about their relationship with music, a lot of them give a similar answer—music truly makes them feel. Whether that feeling is enlightened, tragic, nostalgic, or best described by another suitably dramatic adjective, really depends on the person. Personally, I strongly associate music with experiences that I’ve had. When I listen to those songs now, I either feel nostalgic and think back on how much fun I had, or, quite frankly, never wan

Or, why the fuck is everyone born in the ‘90s calling themselves unc? Author: Ox - Ngāpuhi Let’s roll that back a little. I was an avid reader and miniature academic as a child. I was seen as weird and different for this, but books could never judge me by my cover—and I promised to never do the same to them. Year after year, my shelves filled with new titles and new adventures. I had the highest grades in English from primary all the way to high-school graduation. Roote

Zara Lyne My mother and I have long observed that, wherever I go, I seem to be ‘the youngest person in the room.’ This began as a literal expression, suggesting that I was perhaps the only child at a movie screening full of elderly people. But, as I grew older, it took on a more figurative meaning: the spaces I choose to occupy are generally not shared by those alike to myself. I used to be quite embarrassed by this as a child, as most little kids are when they feel singled

Tom Graham Talk About Wine. It is a well-documented, if maligned, tradition—perhaps as old as academia itself—for students to get on the piss. That’s not going away, no matter what the news or your parents’ friends might be telling you. Generation Z isn’t so into Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa Cab, and that’s not a bad thing; there’s a whole world of brilliant quality, sustainable practice, and funky fun to be had down here in the under, for some very decent prices. Like it or

Pedro Hay Kia ora, everybody! I hope we’re all settling back into 9 a.m. lectures and scurrying over to the Salient stands to see what new mysteries the horoscope will reveal this week. I’m sure we’ve all missed it. I’m back again with more bullshit, so read ahead to see what poor thing evolution has cooked up and set loose for me to take the piss out of. Coming up with a name for this article actually gave me a bit of a challenge, thanks to this animal’s entirely indecisive

Grace Sayer Wellington is full of tracks tucked into hills, bays, bush, and suburbs—but figuring out how and where to start can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re a student without a car. Public transport makes it easy and cheap to wander further than your usual loop, take a break from study, and explore what the region has to offer. Over the past few years these walks have become my favourites, and I hope they’ll become yours too. Eastern Walkway, Miramar Distance

Pluto Rennie The future has started to feel strangely empty. Not empty in the literal sense. If anything, we are surrounded by “future” constantly. AI-generated images flood social media feeds, every second Netflix show is dystopian, and climate apocalypse has become both a political reality and an aesthetic. Even trends feel posthumous now. Y2K revival. Indie sleaze revival. We recycle the past while acting like the future has already been cancelled. I started thinking ab

Zia Ravenscroft There are a handful of moments from my first few years at university that I consider quintessential student experiences. Taking the equivalent of five coffees to the library in a drink bottle to write an essay in one sitting. Sneaking vodka into bars in bottles of hand sanitiser and micellar water. The RAs shutting down every halls-confession page. My theatre lecturer making us promise that no matter how late we stayed in Studio 77 painting our set, we would n

By Will Tickner, Tam Maxwell, and Teg Ward Within the span of a week, I’ll be trying to accomplish a long-term task just to see if it’s possible, and to see what I can get out of it. Life lessons, skills, resilience training? The stimulation alone should be enough motivation. During an event last year, I had to move a big load of tables and chairs from Fairlie Terrace to the Memorial Theatre. What I thought was a ten-minute trip turned into a half-hour sweat-fest of cussing a

CW: Violence, needles, body horror (1) You’re on Kelburn campus in the Hub. You try the doors. Locked. The glass is cold under your hand, and inside the tables are empty, chairs pushed in like everyone left in a hurry. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is dropping behind the buildings, turning the windows orange for a second before the light slips away. The wind moves through the courtyard behind you, carrying the faint sound of traffic from Salamanca Road and making the posts

The mark of a great athlete is his technique. His skill. His championship wins. The mark of a great female athlete is how much scrutiny she faces. How often she’s used for clickbait headlines. How expensive her athleisure wear is. Think about the best female athletes you know: Serena Williams, Simone Biles, Tonya Harding, Alysa Liu. Every single one of them has something in common, and it’s not just the incredibly lengthy hours of work put into their craft. It’s the intense

Salient has been a driving force on campus since 1938, and has become a fixture of student life. From infamously helping collect VUWSA funds for both the Viet Cong and South Vietnam in 1972, to setting up the somehow more controversial “Lundy 500” in 2009 where teams of vehicles travelled from Petone to Palmerston North in an attempt to recreate Mark Lundy’s alleged timeline of the infamous Lundy murders, Salient has had its fair share of tumultuous history. Throughout that t

Andy Lester I hate the concept of intelligence. I hate even more the way we use that word. At first glance, it’s pretty unassuming. You’ve probably used it plenty of times and thought nothing of it, whether you were talking about the smart person in your course or someone who you find particularly inspiring. But as students, the word “intelligence” can be hugely detrimental to us, our confidence, and our learning. To understand why, we first have to ask… What is Intellig

Pedro Hay There is a good chance many people read that title and immediately threw their copy of Salient into the bin, because surely nothing good can come from an article with such a nonsensical bullshit headline. It sounds like something clearly cooked up by a dangerous raving maniac. Well, unfortunately for those people, they will now never know what makes these frankly insane creatures so special. They will not understand why they matter, why we should care about them, o