“A beacon, a small campfire, for people to momentarily gather and allow themselves to be taken into a story. “
Funding partner: Wellington City Creative Communities Scheme
Property Partner: Readings Cinema
Location: 106 Courtenay Place, Te Whanganui-a-Tara.
Time: Wednesdays to Sundays, 4pm to 11pm
Media: Media release
Urban Dreams - Te Wāhi o Te Papa Whakāta is a light in the window for weary storytellers and seekers on a cold winter’s night.
A series of eight curated moving images screened on a public-facing TV in central Te Whanganui-a-Tara. The works presented are literal projections and dreams of what artists envision the future of urban environments to be, in relation to the project’s themes: Te Ao Māori - The World of Māori and Te Taiao - The Natural World.
Located in the window at 106 Courtenay Place, June 22nd through to August 14th 2022, the images will screen Wednesdays to Sundays, 4pm to 11pm. The moving images will inspire in the viewers new perspectives and visions for a more alive embodiment of Te Taiao and Te Ao Māori in everyday urban life.
Urban Dreams - Te Wāhi o Te Papa Whakāta is a shared experience with passersby; other human beings in a public space - the exchange of inspiration, energy and feeling is brought to life, provoking questions and stirrings of curiosity. Is the film posing a question or emitting a tone - to which members of the public will pick up on and ponder.
The lightboxes either side of the TV will give some context to the artist, story and their work towards the project as a whole. The public TV is an accessible format for wonder and intrigue in an urban space. It is a megaphone for artists and storytellers to send signals out into the public space with intention and experimentation.
We are proud to share our line up:
Date showing: June 22nd - June 26th
Artist: Tanya Ruka - (Ngati Pakau Te Uriroroi, Te Parawhau, Te Mahurehure Nga Puhi Waitaha-Hokianga) - “Indigenous Māori visual artist, filmmaker, designer, independent researcher, collaborative producer. Active in Environmental Issues from an Indigenous Perspective in Aotearoa NZ and globally, working with the Waitaha Executive Grandmothers Council as Claims Administrator.”
Title: Te Aro Tāima - How do we protect and enhance the mauri within an urban environment? “Acknowledging the whenua and the awa above and below the city streets. Working with the knowledge of the histories of the land…
How do we experience the three major awa river sources that are below the city streets? How do we access them?
The whakapapa of light and dark capture a story of time unfolding in Courtenay Place from a kaupapa Māori perspective. The colour sequence of the digital weavings is based on the rainbow, referencing Te Ao Marama our world of life and acknowledging the rainbow’s meaning of importance to the people and community of Te Aro.
Date showing: June 29th - July 3rd
Artist: Denise Batchelor - Working in the mediums of photography, video, installation and sculpture, my primary focus is engaging with nature.
Based in the Hokianga, in the far north, my practice is supported by the nearby beaches and forests, the creative process woven into daily rhythms within these environments. Work is informed by a close scrutiny of my surroundings and an equal measure of curiosity, synchronicity and the entirely unexpected.
Title: Slowly - Life can be inherently busy, full of pursuits, goals, and distractions. A perceived separation between urban and rural, between humanity and animalia, often evokes feelings of disconnection. Taking a moment to pause, observe and engage; to be present and connect with an/other, allows space for unexpected exchanges.
Kaitiakitanga (guardianship) is within each of us. It speaks to a deeper connection, to empathy and care, to the contemplation of conservancy. Alluding to the sacred within all life, Slowly is an invitation, to take a moment, to slowly, gently, re/connect.
Date showing: July 6th - July 10th
Artist: Kate Woods - An artist from Tāmaki Makaurau ; she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts..Steffen Kreft and Paul Neason co-founded the Te Whanganui-a-Tara based animation and video studio, National Park. Steffen is a German designer, animator, marionette maker based in Greytown. Paul is Te Whanganui-a-Tara based and is a designer, director and animator.
Title: Non-Sites - Based on the photographs of Kate Woods in collaboration with National Park (Steffen Kreft and Paul Neason). The collaboration was for a group exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum, A View From Where I Was Sleeping, 2012, curated by Lily Hacking.
In Woods' photography, she investigated the documentary photography of 60s and 70s Land Art, in the way some of the images tend to give the sense of a non-space, or at least a space that can never be physically accessed, as it may not exist anymore. Places you will never arrive in, yet seem familiar.
Our complex experience of Te Taiao is often mediated through representations of nature in digital culture. Non-Sites uses found imagery as backgrounds (postcards and posters sourced from opshops) to think about the different ways the environment has been portrayed, especially since the advent of photography.
Date showing: July 20th - July 24th
Artist: Sophie Jerram
An Otago-born, Wellington-based arts advocate, academic and curator working with spatial concerns, investigating interests in care, control and occupation of land and sites from an inherited Pākeha perspective. She is an original co-founder of Letting Space, Urban Dream Brokerage and the Vogelmorn Community Group, and has written a PhD thesis on the practice of spatial commoning.
Title: Refined Life
One of several video works made by Jerram in the 2000s. It was first shown in Enjoy Gallery in 2007 at her show Oil on Troubled Water and was re-presented in installation form in 2010 at Article Biennale, a dedicated climate change art event
Date showing: August 3rd - August 7th
Artist: Jamie Berry - (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi) She is a Multidisciplinary Artist from Turanganui-a-kiwa who resides in Pōneke.
Title: Wai whakaika - A karakia dedicated to the 3 streams, Kumutoto, Tutaenui and Waipiro Streams that flowed from the hills behind Wellington CBD down to the waterfront, significant to Māori pre-colonial times.
These streams which still flow under Wellington CBD were considered tapu and each had specific functionalities from birthing, healing properties, life giving essence, wai Māori, food, burials and matters with the dead. This work is a mihi to the mana and sacredness of these streams.
Date showing: July 13th - July 17th
Artist: Louie Zalk-Neale - (Ngāi Te Rangi, Pākehā) embraces the power of body adornment to affirm their takatāpuitanga in a range of artistic practices. They recycle fabrics and wield materials from forests, beaches and gutters to add meticulously crafted extensions to their body. They immerse their audience in ritualistic performances, bringing queer visions of the past and future abruptly into the present moment.
In recent explorations, their mātauranga Māori informed practice of twisting taura tī kōuka (cabbage tree fibre rope) attempts to bind the sacred transgender experience with the transformative powers of taniwha and tipua - spiritual beings from pūrakau Māori that can change gender and form. Louie’s mahi toi reinforces that queerness is an intrinsic quality of any natural and cultural system.
Title: Mana tipua tuku iho ~ TRANSCESTOR - “The pūrakau of Ngake and Whātaitai uncovers a deep transgender whakapapa that helps me to feel more grounded as a takatāpui, transfeminine person. The taniwha Whātaitai dies and transforms into stone, then his spirit transforms into a female bird.
Using Mātauranga Māori-based practices, my takarure (fins) allow me to embody the transformative powers of this tupuna takatāpui. I adorn my tinana with materials from the whenua, extending my body into spiritual realms, searching for my tūpuna in the darkness of Te Pō.” Louie Zalk-Neale 2022
Date showing: July 27th - July 31st
Artist: Jenna Eriksen
A digital artist whose practice investigates trauma through personal relationship to landscape. Informed by her own experiences of heartbreak, physical and intergenerational trauma. Eriksen’s constructed landscapes embody a willingness to be vulnerable, suggesting an empowered decision to be still, with the intention to succumb to external forces.
Title: FLOW
Revealing a portal to an extended landscape that we might recognise within ourselves — a digital glacial terrain acknowledging the healing nature of time passing, connecting the urban environment to Te Taioa, the natural world.
Reflecting on our current climate and the vast disorienting path that lies ahead, the work evokes a hypnotic, volatile and beautiful horizon. The intersection of stillness and continuous movement allows the passage of time and transformation to occur — a cathartic process of healing through letting go.
Date showing: August 10th - August 14th
Artist: Ollie Hutton - Independent artist and filmmaker living in Pōneke. Awe, human connection and our natural/spiritual world continually inform my work as I explore and play between different artistic mediums - with a focus on the moving image and community arts.
Title: Square-Eyes, E te Atua -
I live in pixels, as do you. Specs of squares, lights of lives, windows of wonder, portals of potentiality. Energy in motion, it’s what we all are, RGB is in our DNA. Little squares of life confined to bubbles of connected isolation. Individual flashes of the one greater picture; electrical energy transfer manifest.
Square Eyes, E te Atua is a moving image work exploring the sanctity and ubiquitous nature of pixels: squares of light and energy multiplying into stories. Like a small karakia here’s an acknowledgement of the mauri that is embedded in our daily lives.