Have you ever wished you could have a turn spinning the Wheel of Fortune? Now you can - though the prizes may not be quite how you remember them.
Rather than sewing machines or encyclopedias, people will be spinning for things like belonging and dignity.
“Instead of a new car or a set of steak knives maybe you win aroha or a sense of community,” said Dowse Art Museum senior curator Chelsea Nichols.
People can experience the glitz and glamour of a replica Wheel of Fortune set at the Dowse from now until February, at the exhibition Wheel of Avalon by artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith.
Nichols described the exhibition as “part nostalgia, part critique”.
“It’s going to tickle all of that desire we all had to spin the prize wheel in the 90s,” she said.
But the critique side was asking people “what is it that we’re spinning for? What is it to win?”
The work is inspired by the artist’s memories of Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt, where shows, including New Zealand’s version of Wheel of Fortune, were filmed.
The exhibition has funding from Creative New Zealand, but much of the work has been assembled “on the smell of an oily rag”. Much of the pieces used in the work were sourced from op shops, recycling shops and Trade Me.
“I think she’s asking some really crucial questions about what we value,” Nichols said.
Holloway-Smith said her work was a response to thinking about “the history and legacy of Avalon TV studios in Lower Hutt”.
The studio opened in 1975 and was now “sort of a shell of what it used to be”.
She grew up watching shows filmed at the studio, and described it as a “magical presence”.
“It just sort of brought up all these questions, I suppose, about wow, what’s happened to the legacy of Avalon?”
As part of her research for the piece, Holloway-Smith watched archived footage of the remaining available episodes of Wheel of Fortune shot at Avalon. Of the roughly 1300 episodes, only about 100 have been archived, most of which were celebrity editions.
“I would spend a whole day binge-watching as much as I could... it was kind of essential to sort of study the set and try to bring it together.”
She wondered whether Avalon’s Wheel of Fortune was “a symbol of 90s Pakeha national identity”.
“It kind of felt like Wheel of Fortune is part of my cultural identity,” she laughed.
She first started working on the project in December 2023 and has finally unveiled it in Lower Hutt. It includes tongue-in-cheek promo videos filmed in the city, a replica of the set, and a full-sized wheel to spin.
The exhibition is free and open every day except Mondays.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.