The Manukau

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.