Water
AND
Weather
Group
A Manukau Harbour event: Onehunga
Foreshore
Participants:
Hannah Alleyne (Spatial designer)
Ruth Watson (Installation, media artist)
Lisa Reihana (Media artist)
Janine Randerson (Media artist)
Nick Spratt (Designer, artist)
Sarah Treadwell (Architect, artist)
Eu Jin Chua (Moving image curator)
Background
The Water and Weather project
draws together a number of artworks, artefacts, projections, and design
outcomes that intervene in or capture the manifold ways in which the identities
and public life of Auckland communities have been tied to our watery
meteorology and geography. This project will draw attention to the histories, Maori
lore, ecological issues around water in the Manukau harbour. It will take a
number of forms;
Manukau harbour waterfront event
Onehunga Foreshore, November 2014
This is a community focused 3-4 day
event orientated around the Old Mangere Bridge, the Holcim cement silos and the
Manukau boating club and foreshore restoration area. Approximately eight
site-specific art, performance and spatial propositions will be staged over a
period from aThursday to Sunday.
Exhibition
Te Tuhi Gallery, November 2014
This exhibition expands and
compliments the site-specific propositions in the waterfront project.
Approximately eight artworks will be exhibited over a two month period. Curator
Bruce Phillipswill work closely with the Water and Weather group on the
exhibition at Te Tuhi.
Screening programme
Curator Eu Jin Chua is developing a
screening programme featuring historical and contemporary artists to either
include or augment works by the current contributors to the Water and Weather
project. His interest in water and weather is twofold: firstly, he is
working on an existing project about ecology and the moving image. Secondly, he
is starting a new research/curatorial project about ‘elementalism’ in
contemporary art.
Publication
Designer and artist Nick Spratt is
developing an experimental digital publication for Water and Weather that
documents the group’s research. The publication will reshape itself depending
on the environmental factors and weather conditions in the reader’s
location, bringing a heightened sense of place to the reader, whether
they be reading in Onehunga, Pakuranga or further afield.
— Water and Weather —
The Manukau Harbour waterfront event,
Onehunga Foreshore, November 2014
The Water and Weather group
will generate light works, video projections, performances, temporary
installations, designs and lithographic prints to draw the community to a four
day event on the Onehunga foreshore. The project focuses on creative
place-making in a transitional foreshore; the variable weathers and tides, the
last days of the old Mangere bridge, a new bridge, the restored beach (in
progress), renewed attention to the harbour’s waters, the Holcim cement silos
and the Port of Onehunga. At centre stage is New Zealand’s second largest
harbour, the Manukau itself, opening out from the South-West of the Auckland
isthmus and flowing into theTasman Sea.
Kaiwhare is the taniwha of the
Manukau, a restless sleeper who creates sudden surges as he rolls over. Water
and Weather group member Lisa Reihana will advise the group on working with
Ngati Te Ata, Te Akitai and Ngati Tamaoho (Te Waiohua), living in the Onehunga
region and the iwi of the wider Manukau, who treasure the harbour for its
fisheries and waterways, yet have long despaired at the despoiling of its
waters.
The
Water and Weather group are concerned with the ecologies of the harbour;
a large part of
the
harbour consists of tidal sand bars, home to an array of species including
scallops, cockles,
wedge
shells, shorebirds and serves as a nursery for many fish species. The recent Three
Waters:
Auckland
as a Maritime City reports
that “during 2011-2012 summer, of the14 bathing beaches
tested
76% of the passed recreational bacteria guidelines, compared to 86% in
2010-2011.
(Three
Waters: Auckland as a Maritime City, 36). This decline in quality is a concern
for the
ecotopes
of the area (distinctive ecological systems) where both human and non-human
interests will be represented by artworks by the group. The artworks will
examine ‘what is’ and provide potentially transformative intimations of ‘what
could be’ in this body of water and foreshore.
