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Land will always remain
Art has the ability of bringing new conversations to audiences and making people think about issues in different ways. Each of the artists in Aratoi’s latest major exhibition, Toitū Te Whenua, The Land Will Always Remain, encourages the viewer to think deeply about the forces that have shaped our environment.
Images of Aotearoa New Zealand’s majestic landscape have become synonymous with our national identity and our appreciation of our natural environment is strongly felt by many New Zealanders. It is true that this rugged and fruitful land shaped the destiny of early New Zealanders both Māori and Pākehā, and yet we have also shaped our land.
Showing in the main gallery, the exhibition showcases five diverse artists who have investigated the ecological, historical, political, and social forces which have shaped our environment. From large installations to intimate paintings, the exhibition’s kaupapa focuses on matters that affect all of us in Aotearoa and around the world: our physical environment, the land, our home, our actions, our history, and how this shapes our identity.
Artist Jacqui Colley said, “This exhibition is designed to be minimalist, with a meditative quality. The main gallery feels like dusk, each work quietly lit with a beam of light. At one end of the gallery the pulse of light of Simon Lardelli’s contemporary installation is like a strange heartbeat as it moves through the space. At the other end of the gallery, Bruce Foster’s unearthly landscapes glide across the wall. There are disorienting and compelling aerial views to ground us as seen through Ian-Wayne Grant’s carvings and Jenna Packer’s elegant works. The works in this powerful exhibition are meant to be
Bruce Foster, Traces (2020), photograph. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
experienced collectively, and the whole is enhanced by a sense of materiality ensuring a visceral experience.” • The exhibition Toitū Te
Whenua, The Land Will
Always Remain was developed by Aratoi in partnership with the artists. It is on until
June 26.
A new vision for Carkeek Observatory
Emily Ireland
emily.ireland@age.co.nz
Featherston’s community board has thrown its support behind stabilising the historic Carkeek Observatory, covering it to protect it, and building a replica nearby.
The observatory, which was built in the 1860s, is in a ruinous state and is destined to be lost completely if action is not taken.
The Carkeek Observatory was built in 1867 by Stephen Carkeek, New Zealand’s first Inspector and Commissioner of Customs.
Carkeek was a keen amateur astronomer and when he retired in 1866, he built his own observatory on the Featherston farm he lived on.
Because it is sited on council land in Featherston, the town’s
Carkeek Observatory in Featherston.
PHOTO/FILE community board and South Wairarapa District Council have the final say on viable conservation options.
The Carkeek Observatory is a category 1 structure under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act.
This listing recognises it as an historic place of special or outstanding historical or cultural significance or value.
Members of the Featherston Community Board [FCB] have discussed potential options for its conservation.
The options included: recording the structure but doing nothing to conserve it; stabilising the structure; restoring the structure; and building a replica.
FCB unanimously agreed to support a combination option of stabilising the structure, covering it, and building a replica nearby that could have a functional use.
The Wairarapa Dark Sky Association also regarded the observatory as a key piece of infrastructure to help the development of a working regional dark sky reserve.
South Wairarapa District Council amenities manager Bryce Neems said there was an opportunity to get a cycle trail in the area and make it a site of interest for tourists
He said the replica didn’t necessarily have to be erected adjacent to the existing structure.
He suggested it could go at The Squircle, or Cherry Tree Park in Featherston so it was in a more accessible location for residents.
Any work on the original structure would have to be done by contractors approved by Heritage New Zealand, Neems said. — NZLDR
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