UK television game shows like The Chase and Tipping Point still see many New Zealanders gripped to their screens to watch contestants from all walks of life try out their knowledge against chasers and machines for cash and prizes.
Not so long ago we were making these kinds of syndicated shows here.
From 1991 to 1996 Wheel of Fortune was filmed at Avalon Television Centre in Lower Hutt. It returned to Auckland studios from 2008 to 2009. Contestants spun the big wheel for prizes, after playing Hangman-like word games. Wheel of Fortune made stars of the likes of the late Philip Leishman, Lana Coc-Kroft and Simon Barnett, following in the wake of the likes of Sale of the Century and, even further back, It's In the Bag.
Now Wheel of Fortune is back, but this time as Wheel of Avalon.
Just down the road from Avalon studio at the Dowse Art Museum, Pōneke artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith has recreated the set and audiovisuals of the game for her installation Wheel of Avalon.
For Holloway-Smith and others growing up in the Hutt, Wheel of Fortune was "more than just a syndicated import". It was proudly local, glamorous and a little magical.
"The kind of show," she says "where winning a new car could change your life, and Lana's outfits deserved their own fan club."
Yet Wheel of Avalon is about much more than nostalgia. While Holloway-Smith is gathering people's memories of the show in the Hutt, she's also exploring what aspirations the show suggests, as a nation, we were "spinning the wheel for."
Bronwyn Holloway-Smith is known for major art projects that explore public memory and the way our values, history and culture are represented and she is also co-director of Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand.
