Mapping Delight - Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Mapping Delight Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

1  Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa 

Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa First published October 2017 © Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (unless otherwise credited) mhminsight.com ISBN: 978-0-473-41259-3

Cover image: Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert, Pathway to the sea / Aramoana, 1991. Courtesy of Bill Culbert/ Hopkinson Mossman and the Hotere Foundation Trust.

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Tiny pockmarks left by the asphalt on the heels of palms. The whirl of blue sky and black ground. The hot-metal smell from the pole on the adventure playground, the taste of metal on her fingers.

From Emily Perkins’ The Forrests

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Mapping delight Tides and tectonics 5 The sense of a cultural identity 7 The natural world 20 Humour and play 33 Size and isolation 41 History and age 52 Works cited 57

As part of Auckland Council Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau’s work on art in public spaces – and, more specifically, the potential

that the City Rail Link project affords art – Morris Hargreaves

McIntyre was commissioned to conduct a phase one research project examining the creative identity of New Zealand Aotearoa and how it may uniquely manifest in Auckland.

Twenty one-on-one consultation interviews were held with artists, architects, musicians, critics, curators and commentators.

The themes identified in those interviews are presented here.

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Methodology Twenty one-on-one hour-long consultation interviews were conducted with a range of creative practitioners, ranging from architects to composers to designers to critics to writers to artists to filmmakers.

These interviews involved asking each respondent about their own creative practice, New Zealand’s creative identity, and whether there were elements that made work in Tāmaki Makaurau unique. Interviews were conducted with the following people: Pip Cheshire, Patrick Clifford, Dr Ngarino Ellis, Sue Gallagher, Brett Graham, Humphrey Ikin, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Hamish Keith, Maureen Lander, Don McGlashan, Paula Morris, Emily Perkins, Gaylene Preston, Racheal Rakena, Lisa Reihana, Te Ahukaramu ˉ Charles Royal, Michael Smythe, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Andrew Tu’inukuafe and Greer Twiss.

Tides and tectonics Analysis of these interviews revealed five major themes that – like tectonic plates – collide into one another in various configurations to create differences in the creative work made in Aotearoa.

These included notions of identity, particularly our relationship to biculturalism, a sense of humour and play, the importance of our

relationship to the natural world, our size and isolation, and New Zealand’s history and age.

Lisa Reihana, detail in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–2017, Ultra HD video, colour, sound, 64 min. Image courtesy of the artist and New Zealand at Venice.

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Five underlying traits that influence Aotearoa’s creative identity

Our relationship to history As a young country, we are still figuring out who we are. We have a perceived freedom to destroy and rebuild in order to find ourselves, but are now reaching an adolescence, particularly in Auckland

The search for an identity We are still navigating who we are as a country, but there is a growing confidence with our nation’s biculturalism and – in Auckland – the city’s increasing multiculturalism

Self-conscious to more subtle and abstract representations

Size / isolation From a temporary mindset to creating for permanence

The natural world We value and honour our natural world – the landscape, the wildlife, the sea – and this shapes who we are and the work we make

Play and humour We have a tendency to use humour to balance more serious conversations and to create unexpected relationships with playful intent

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The small size of the country and its isolation from the rest of the world contributes to a sense of temporaneity and unease, particularly in Auckland, which is sometimes treated as a gateway to the rest of the world.

Globalisation has led to an emerging confidence, shifting the mindset from being ‘ready to leave’ to ‘digging one’s heels in’

Washed-out palette, black, greys

Materials connecting to nature – timber, glass, flax – often used in unexpected ways

Rapid innovation and rebuild

Trend towards more interactive work

Trend towards environmentallyconscious or focused work

Uniquely interdisciplinary work

The sense of a cultural identity A universally-identified influence on work made in Aotearoa was

the search for a national and personal cultural identity.

Many traced how the nature of this has changed over the decades, culminating in an

increased confidence in biculturalism and, in Auckland in particular, multiculturalism.

This shift was seen to manifest in the trend from self-conscious

representations of identity to more subtle expressions, and a trend towards more work that both celebrates and diverges from tradition.

Gordon Walters, Painting No. 1, 1965. PVA on hardboard Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1966.

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A growing confidence with our personal and national cultural identity A common theme identified throughout the interviews was the relationship between an artist’s sense of identity – both personal and national – and the work they produce, and how this has evolved over recent decades. This was discussed particularly in terms of New Zealand artists' relationship to, and representations of, indigeneity. Many identified a shift from biculturalism as something that was selfconsciously recognised or ‘literally represented’ to something more deeply embraced and organically and naturally represented.

‘There was a famous quote from [John Bevan Ford] that said something like: at one stage we worked within a single culture,

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now we work within this duality of two, and so our art has shifted because of that.’

Megan Tamati-Quennell

‘I’d like to think we have arrived at a better understanding, and even a deep embracing, of Māori tikanga and kaupapa... which includes an appreciation of the other cultures with which we interact and then sometimes represent in our designs... So it is an exciting time.

There is not so much treading on eggshells. The younger generation seem much more confident and

matter-of-fact about embracing Māori culture as part of who we are as New Zealanders.’

Michael Smythe

There were also a number of discussions centring on the shift from rural to urban Māori life and how this impacted on identity (between 1926 to 1986, the proportion of Māori living in rural, tribal settlements declined from 84% to 20%). This was seen to have impacted on work made in Auckland in particular. ‘Such a dramatic displacement into a strange new world,’ writes Paul Meredith on Te Ara, ‘led to isolation and a sense of loss.’ With the revival of te reo Māori through the ‘70s, urban Māori ‘forged a new and vibrant pan-tribal identity.’

‘[Māori living in urban areas was] a big shift culturally, in the way that people operated, and that’s where modern Māori art came out of, with that idea of urbanisation, and being part of a moneyed economy... and I suppose wanting to be more metropolitan.

It’s hard, because I think artists have their own individual concerns, and they often work with an idea or a set of ideas throughout their entire career, and it manifests in different ways.’

Megan Tamati-Quennell

Michael Parekowhai’s The Lighthouse, 2017. Photograph by David St George, courtesy of Auckland Council.

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This increasing confidence with our country's relationship to our Māori heritage was seen to manifest in more abstract contemporary representations. Te Oro was cited by multiple respondents as a work that shifts away from decorative representation to one that subtly but unmistakably reflects Glen Innes' community and culture.

The impact of living in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world

Auckland Council’s Te Oro designed by Archimedia with artists Bernard Makoare, Martin Leung-Wai and Petelo Esekielu in collaboration with mana whenua iwi. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds, courtesy of Auckland Council.

Te Oro is a public music and arts facility named for the sound made when the wind blows over Maungarei (Mt Wellington). Conceptualised as a natural arboreal canopy, it draws on natural materials like timber to create an environmentally-conscious structure (solar panels reduce electrical consumption by more than 50% and rain water is harvested and stored for re-use). Sound cones, embedded into the structure at six points around its perimeter, combine music, archival and everyday field recordings to create a rich, living history of Glen Innes.

Within Auckland, this confidence was often spoken about in terms of its response to, and expression of, its multiculturalism. With 39% of the city’s population born overseas, and more than 220 recorded ethnic groups, Auckland is the fourth most diverse city in the world1, and many commented that the city’s growing diversity was contributing to a greater sense of openness and interest in other cultures, resulting in a more complex relationship to identity politics compared to other cities in New Zealand.

1

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The 2015 World Migration Report from the International Organisation for Migration

‘We have different factors at play than we might have in, say, Wellington – and so as the second biggest city of Pacific peoples, we have a different engagement and a different identity with Pacific communities, and with other communities as well.’

Dr Ngarino Ellis Auckland Lantern Festival, 2016. Photograph courtesy of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

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Reclamation and celebration An idea that emerged alongside this sense of increasing confidence was that of the post-Treaty settlement future, representing a shift from anger and grievance to one that includes celebration.

This recognises that while the culture of disquiet and protest still sits as an essential part of Māori experience, it need not be the sole centre.

Mana Wahine, Okareka Dance Company.

Despite this increasing confidence, it was also emphasised that New Zealand work – and Auckland work in particular – still had room for improvement when it came to representation of Māori art and artists, particularly in terms of consciously acknowledging not only Ngāti Whātuao-Ōrākei, but all of Auckland’s mana whenua iwi.

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‘There is such a deficit in terms of being visually Māori around [Auckland] that having spaces, particularly where there are a high proportion of Māori-Pacific, is really important.’

Dr Ngarino Ellis

‘We need not necessarily only be motivated by what we lost, but we can be motivated and inspired by what we have.

And what we do have is a language and a literature, and a history, and distinctive cultural expressions... so opportunity can be the centre of what inspires us to action, as much as a sense of loss.’

Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal

There was also a sense of this celebration being an essential element of New Zealand work:

From an architectural perspective, this was discussed in relation to the Te Aranga Principles (summarised overleaf), as well as more generally in terms of how practitioners might express those values when making work.

‘I really struggle to think that you can have an identity without... valuing the indigenous identity. Or the indigenous language.

Regardless of where you go.’

In addition to this, the notion of manaakitanga – hosting and welcoming people – was identified as crucial, particularly in architecture and urban design. Selwyn Muru’s Te Waharoa O Aotea was mentioned as an example of a work that exemplifies this – incorporating both traditional and contemporary elements that have meaningful resonance for the city.

Brett Graham In addition to incorporating traditional practices like weaving, or using carving and tukutuku patterns and kowhaiwhai design, embodying te ao Māori in the process – rather than simply the overall outcome – was often discussed.

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Photograph courtesy of Te Papa. ‘[Flax has a] whakapapa symbolism, so the plant itself is made of fans, and in the centre of the fan is the baby. On either side are the parents and then you go out to the extended family.

So when you cut the flax, you always leave the baby and the parents intact... you can use the more extended family because the centre of the family is still strong and will grow.’

Maureen Lander

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki was also identified by a majority of respondents as an architectural embodiment of Auckland – perhaps given a clarity through it being designed by a nonNew Zealander. This included having a welcoming space that – as Pip Cheshire described – ‘easily fits the notion of a marae’ and which embodies te ao Māori to enable tikanga Māori in practice.

‘When you look at the more recent Te Aranga design principles, they talk about connection to land, guardianship of the land, the importance of naming, and the importance of taking local stories and embodying those within the building. There are all sorts of things which a lot of people have been doing anyway, but it codifies them in terms of a more formal design guideline.

From Auckland Design Manual’s Guidance for Te Aranga Principles

... It’s the approach to the inside of a space: the meeting house is the ancestor, the inside of a space is the inside of some sort of being, you know, the structural ribs, the spine. You can imagine that in a subterranean space... they can be related or narrated in all sorts of ways... I think there is an ability to create and align with New Zealand stories, with local stories, with Auckland stories, in the creation of this thing which will ultimately help connect us all together and help the city run more smoothly.’

​Outcome: Māori names are celebrated​

Andrew Tu’inukuafe

Māori culture and identity highlights Aotearoa New Zealand’s point of difference in the world and offers up significant design opportunities that can benefit us all. The Te Aranga Māori Design Principles are a set of outcome-based principles founded on intrinsic Māori cultural values and designed to provide practical guidance for enhancing outcomes for the design environment. The principles have arisen from a widely held desire to enhance mana whenua presence, visibility and participation in the design of the physical realm.​

Mana Rangatiratanga: Authority Outcome: The status of iwi and hapūūas mana whenua is recognised and respected​​

Whakapapa: Names and naming Taiao: The natural environment ​​​​Outcome: The natural environment is protected, restored and/or enhanced

Mauri Tu: Environmental health ​​Outcomes: Environmental health is protected, maintained and/or enhanced

Mahi Toi: Creative expression ​​​Outcome: Iwi/hapūūnarratives are captured and expressed creatively and appropriately

Tohu: The wider cultural landscape ​Outcome: Mana whenua significant sites and cultural landmarks are acknowledged

Ahi Kā: The living presence ​​Outcome: Iwi/hapū have a living and enduring presence and are secure and valued within their rohe www.aucklanddesignmanual.co.nz/design-thinking/maori-design/te_aranga_principles

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‘In coastal Māori arts it was essential to support each kind of art form, each discipline, with whakataukī. Every figure, every woven pattern, each painted design had a pēpeha associated with it. The benefits of this underpinning of the mahi (work) with the kupu (word) were twofold: an explanation of the tohu (sign) was provided; and the information was able to be committed to memory. The viewer, knowing the pēpeha, contributed his share to the understanding and thus knowledge was preserved. Many of the designs that embellish the buildings on a marae are not, in fact, simply attractive passages of decorative filler but are functionally educative devices, like visual mnemonics, to preserve and pass on vital information about “this house in this place”... The fact that the painted rafter touches the head, the sacred part of the poupou (carved ancestor), means that the mind, will and intention come within its sphere. The carving is a set piece with the potential for action contained within. The tukutuku (woven panels) are the field of action within which the protagonists perform, also set pieces with the ciphers keyed in. The role of kōwhaiwhai patterned onto the rafters is to set the whole in motion. To use a modest, modern simile, the kōwhaiwhai is like the operational button on a calculator.

It is not possible to make any sense of the arts within a whare whakairo (meeting house) without seeing all three disciplines in relation to one another. Kōwhaiwhai is the most enigmatic art form of all, partly because the decorative impulses of generations of artists have carried the patterns far from the initial motif source, and partly because the designs themselves are about transience and process – the “operations” without which all the other parts are consigned to stasis.’

From Damian Skinner’s The Passing World, The Passage of Life: John Hovell and the art of kōwhaiwhai.

Image: John Hovell, Rakau Taonga series III Puriri, 2011

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Towards multiculturalism The unique vernacular for work created in Auckland was also thought to reflect the city’s multiculturalism: not only embracing Māori values and design principles in a contemporary context, but also those from the Pacific, from Asia, and beyond.

‘We ended up melding a number of ideas [when we were designing Tupu Youth Library in Otara].

One was looking at the crossover between models that would be familiar to the target demographic, as well as models from Europe and New Zealand, so the result was effectively an open pavilion, very, very open, as you might do in the islands or parts of New Zealand, but interpreted in

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a very contemporary way. Then trying to make it familiar, we touched on ideas of traditional Pacific art handicraft in the patterns that would be used. The whole structural scheme ended up being a sort of diagonal grid of a tapa cloth, rendered in structural steel...

There was a crossover between what you might expect from the Pacific and how you might interpret that in New Zealand.’

Andrew Tu‘inukuafe

A certain freedom in exploration Finally, the growing confidence around our cultural identity means that rather than it becoming a ‘responsibility’ as such, or one

self-consciously represented, expression was seen to have shifted towards independent exploration.

Artists like Christina Wirihana and Reuben Paterson were identified as artists ‘really pushing the boundaries’ in terms of Māori art that ‘doesn’t necessarily look Māori’.

Sculptor Brett Graham spoke about ‘rebelling’ against his father who cleared surface decoration in order to return to the essence of the work. ‘By putting them back in, I was consciously saying: well, actually these things are worth looking at again.’

‘It’s really easy to get stuck on something that’s obviously visually Māori or... you know, that’s the easiest thing, but... it doesn’t necessarily connect with everybody.’

Rachael Rakena

Similarly, Lisa Reihana spoke about bringing some of the practices portrayed in in Pursuit of Venus [Infected] back because she was curious to know what they looked like: they felt lost to her, especially because ‘there’s a difference between reading something and seeing it performed.’

Speaking in our own voice In addition to this greater sense of freedom in exploration, and a more subtle rendering of identity, there was a greater sense of ownership and pride discussed in relation to work made in Aotearoa, including using our own accent in musical work.

‘When I was getting started, it was very strange to hear somebody sing in a New Zealand accent, because the only reason that people would do that would be to take the piss.’

Don McGlashan

Reuben Paterson, Pukeiti (2016). Courtesy of Gow Langsford Gallery.

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This ownership of the way we talk, the way we express ourselves, the inflections that are used: these were all thought to ‘make what we’re doing unique – not as a sort of add-on, like a point of difference, but a core principle.’

‘I think you hear it in Lorde, you know, when she sings about going down to the tennis courts. She’s trying to write truthfully about being a teenager on the North Shore in that record, and I don’t think those particular melodies and rhythms would come from another culture. I think they really come from this place.

There’s something about the word setting, about the way the melodies go down at the end rather than up. There’s a sort of restraint which I don’t think an American teen would have, even one with the same sensibility (if you could find such a person!)

I think an American teen would phrase things differently; perhaps a bit more flashy. There’s a really cool restraint about Lorde, and that’s one of the reasons everybody went: “This is new, I’ve never heard anything like this before”.’

Don McGlashan

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An increasing confidence in biculturalism and - in Auckland - multiculturalism has resulted in a shift from more self-conscious expressions to work that interrogates and celebrates identity at a deeper level.

This is seen to have resulted in more abstract work that considers how identity (both personal and national) might manifest, not only in the final work, but in the process and materials used.

‘People now don’t immediately cringe or want to turn the radio off if they hear a New Zealand accent in a song, and that’s a big shift, I think.

A really big shift.’

Don McGlashan

Laneway 2017. Image: Connor Crawford.

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The natural world A second influence was the way we

relate to and value the natural world – the light, the landscape,

the birds, the sea – which, in turn, was thought to influence colour palette, materials, sounds, and the concerns inherent in the work created in Aotearoa.

In Auckland, the urban environment and our maunga were identified as elements which were particularly pronounced, uniquely impacting how creative work made here might manifest.

Brett Graham at Hurstmere Green: Drinking fountain in the shape of Pupukemoana. Photograph Simon Devitt.

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‘Everything about us, the patterns of our landscape and seacoasts, the changing of our seasons, and the flow of light and colour about us... all these things show patterns of movement or characteristic rhythms. And these things in a subtle way affect our manner of living and I believe that they impress themselves on our minds in a way that will ultimately give rise to forms of musical expression.’

Douglas Lilburn, A Search for Tradition, A talk given at the first Cambridge Summer School of Music in January 1946

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The light, the colour Respondents commonly identified the importance of the country's landscape, its birds, the wildlife, the sea (and the wider natural world) in influencing creative work, from the colour palette to the materials used to the content of the work itself, not only in terms of it being represented but the degree to which it is valued and celebrated.

‘The Māori palette is a little bit more subdued and the Pacific colours are a lot more colourful... our landscape is like that. We don’t have the colourful flowers... the range was limited to the colours we could produce with barks and mud and natural materials.’

Maureen Lander New Zealand’s ‘hard light’ was often referred to as well, creating a more ‘washed-out’ palette:

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Shane Cotton, Faith, 1995 oil on board (wooden door) Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 1997.

‘The clarity in the harshness of New Zealand light... had an impact on painters as far back as William Hodges on Cook’s voyages. They were coping with some kind of atmospheric effects they had never seen before, or with that kind of

clarity, that, you know, you can stand on a hillside here and look at another hillside, and see almost every leaf or branch or whatever, which you couldn’t do in the softer light of the continents, or in the English light.’

Hamish Keith

‘[The real Far North of New Zealand] is like standing on a moon. Way down below is the sea and the edge of the world and the beach running to nothing and to Te Reienga Wairua: us and a lovely old lady spaniel leaping about with joy – and nothing, nothing more – and further north when you get there – all sculpted by wind and rain it's there – you bury your heart, and as it goes deeper into the land you can only follow. It’s a painful love, loving a land, it takes a long time. I stood with an old Māori lady on a boat from Australia once – a terribly rough and wild passage. We were both on deck to see the Three Kings – us dripping tears. It’s there that this land starts.

The very bones of New Zealand were there, bare yellow clay-slides running to the sea, and black rock.

Up north the manuka hangs fiercely to the land form.

It is a protective skin, it protects the land it needs and the land gives it life and a season of red and pink and white flowering. Take the manuka and the land is lost.’

Colin McCahon, Art New Zealand (1977)

Colin McCahon, Muriwai: Necessary Protection, 1972. Acrylic on paper on board Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Miss LD Gilmour, 1983.

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Transparent materiality

Auckland Art Gallery was commonly referenced as a piece of architecture that embodied New Zealand’s identity: in the way it responded to the landscape, in the materials used, and in the values inherent in the design of the structure. This was seen particularly in the way it responded to Albert Park and its history:

The materials used in Aotearoa were seen to uniquely respond to the environments in which it was created or set.

‘We are using concrete in a lighter way, or in a way that works as part of the landscape rather than an object in the landscape. I think we are using glass and timber to bring out the warmth and the light.’

Michael Smythe

‘We’ve got people building apartment buildings with concrete with patterns in it... all concrete panels have patterns - either an absence of or a presence of - so what we’re seeing now is a presence of something that could pretty much only be from here.’

Patrick Clifford

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The Brake House by Ron Sang (1977) Courtesy of Eric Young. Photograph Frank Breslin.

‘It’s got lots of timber and organic symbolism... the idea of the canopies... the columns holding up the rooves, and the fact the roof is broken down into a series of elements you might look at and say: well that’s a sort of abstracted punga or something of that sort.’

Pip Cheshire

‘[Auckland Art Gallery] is a framing of Albert Park.

It performs as a porous boundary that reconnects the city to Albert Park through a series of framed views and thresholds, and creates a different sense of arrival and passage for the public.

The opening up of the façade, as a series of framed viewing platforms, suggests a radical repositioning of the role of the gallery in relation to the public – as an open and welcoming public space.

Each threshold within the gallery has been carefully articulated through carved patterns, which transforms how we experience the moments of crossing into the various exhibitions.

I think what they’ve successfully allowed to occur in this project is a productive approach to working with diversity, and to incorporate spatial design strategies which draw from the temporal structures of ritual and narrative, to allow for multiple and shifting views.’

Sue Gallagher

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Photograph David St George, courtesy Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

‘The way in which you move through [Headland House], the line between interior-occupied space, the ways in which the spatial experience is constructed: that strikes me as a peculiarly New Zealand house, and I’m not sure it’s a house you would have built anywhere else in the world... it’s very open and connected to the landscape, but not totally open. It’s not a glass box. The way in which they’ve created shelter is interesting.

It’s a connected and seamless and continuous experience from very closed to very open.

It sort of felt primitive in a way... It wasn’t raw work, even though there was a rawness to the materiality of it. It was very, very elegant. It was primitive in that it was just walls, a shelter, plain openness and closure, but elegantly detailed, elegantly resolved.

Concrete, ground concrete. Stained dark timber.

Glass. Very softly curved. It’s a beautiful house... and a really strong experience of space and place.’

Andrew Tu‘inukuafe Headland House Onetangi Beach by Stevens Lawson Architects.

Photograph Mark Smith.

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The influence of different environments on work Within the context of Tāmaki Makaurau, the urban environment and maunga were identified as characteristics that uniquely influence the work that gets produced, compared to work created in other cities, like Wellington:

‘In Trinity [Root]’s music, you can hear the rain in the Wairarapa. I think you can hear... in the music, you can hear the moodiness of the Rimutaka Ranges and of the plains of the Wairarapa, and you can hear the Matterhorn lounge on Cuba Street, you know! You can hear it!’

Charles Royal In addition to the influence of a city's landscape and climate, Charles Royal noted the impact of the sociopolitical environment on work written in Wellington – where there is a strong sense of the government’s presence – compared to

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Auckland, where the environment is one of a more private-sector urbanised environment. In Wellington, he proposed, music had a greater tendency to exert a form of independence ‘in spite’ of the presence of the government.

Auckland’s sprawling, urban, up-and-down environment Auckland, by contrast, was seen as being impacted by its urban sprawl: whereas the geographic size of Wellington meant everyone was likely to live in closer proximity to one another, the spread in Auckland was thought to impact both on the nature of collaborative work and the fragmentation of community, which in turn could be seen to be reflected in a less cohesive, singular identity and rather a multitude of different voices and strands of work emerging.

Auckland’s maunga were often cited as a uniquely defining characteristic of the city, impacting creative expression in both conscious and unconscious ways, including both the Māori and Pakeha folklore surrounding them.

Dominion Road is bending, Under its own weight, Shining like a strip Cut from a sheet metal plate, Cause it’s just been raining ‘Dominion Road’ – The Mutton Birds

This city is aging with no grace they stare out your window at the motorway and the smokestack while you tell them how long it could be ‘The Songs Of Your Youth’ – Anthonie Tonnon

Let rain fall from concrete coloured skies ‘Drive’ – Bic Runga

‘In the middle of all this lushness, greenness and peace, there’s a really violent symmetrical thing that just suddenly appeared out of the water.

All of that heat and energy must change the way we see this place...

I can remember being a little kid going to Rangitoto, and just that sense of heat, and the roughness of the rocks, and the sort of, moonlike uninhabitability of it, really made an impression on me. In the midst of this rather benign place, you’ve got this forbidding emblem of the violent earth. Maurice Gee really nailed it in Under The Mountain.’

Don McGlashan

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From the crater of Rangitoto a thin red beam of light climbed steadily into the sky. It bent towards Mount Eden, approached over the harbour, reached half way and stopped: a red bow, bathing the sea and city in light. And slowly from the stone in Mount Eden’s crater its companion began to grow. But it grew with such pain, such reluctance. It made ten metres, and fell back ten. It climbed again and fell. Watching, Theo knew this was the damage he had done by putting Lenart down. The fault was his. If the blue arc of light failed to reach the red the world would die. He saw Auckland, a mass of lights, saw the buildings, the houses. The people would die, he would die, smothered in mud. The stars would go out.

From Maurice Gee’s Under the Mountain

The climate was commonly mentioned as an element impacting creative expression: from the more tangible implications, like architecture having to provide shelter in response to Auckland’s particular climate, to a broader sense of unpredictability.

The presence of the sea was also commented on: the sight of the sun sparkling on the Waitemata, the beach as a place of well-worn leisure, the feel of the sun warm against your skin and emanating from the sand below, the washed-out palette that lenses your day when you’ve spent an hour too long outside.

As well as that, water was seen to have special significance on a number of different levels, including in one’s identity and in one’s history:

Photograph courtesy of Auckland Council.

‘Water’s kind of huge for me. It’s a life force... our migration narratives. What else? Our cosmo-geneological narratives. Māori identity is often spoken of primarily in terms of land... it’s kind of where you live. [In my work] I used water to explore the idea of being landless, or losing that connection of a place to stand.’

Rachael Rakena

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Finally, there was mention of the fact that Aucklanders were likely to ignore their landscape at a conscious level, despite the fact it was likely to manifest sub-consciously in work:

‘If you do art well, it can’t help but taste, smell and feel of where you come from.

Auckland’s a really particular place, and the beautiful environment, plus the way we both revel in, and ignore that beauty (“Yes, it’s beautiful, but we’ve got to get on with our day”) is a big part of being an Aucklander.

Also there’s the up-and-down nature of the landscape; the fact that every few yards, there seems to be a volcano you can climb up and get a vista looking down on a place. That changes the way people think. All of that’s going to sneak, unbidden, into the work of Auckland writers, choreographers, novelists and songwriters, if they’re doing their job.’

Don McGlashan

30 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

‘The other thing I thought about in the past, when there’s a firework display: I’ve wondered why people have never thought to do them out of volcanoes rather than off the Sky Tower?’

Maureen Lander

The importance of context The importance of context when drawing on the natural world was commonly emphasised: at its best, work that did so was site-specific, taking into account the actual environment in which it was being created.

‘I think [creating a different story across our regions] is really important because it... makes New Zealand whole, not just one hub, but an interconnection of possibilities.’

Lisa Reihana

‘I think there are really lovely ways to look at a particular landscape... what happened there, and who the ancestor was, and who it might be linked to... It brings back to life something that was there.’

Maureen Lander

When it came to discussing the City Rail Link, the importance of responding to the underground was raised as a vital issue, not only in terms of the physical landscape being acknowledged but the history of each place – from the Waihorotiu Stream and Horotiu, the taniwha, to the historical events that may have taken place in the same location, while also being mindful of the setting in which it’s occuring.

‘The challenge of going underground is not like any other architectural challenge. It’s quite different.

‘Cause everywhere else ... you can see the sky, you’ve got the sun there, you’ve got... you know, you look out to see the land. All the

31 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

things that we hold dear are still there, moving in and out of other buildings.

Once you’re underground all that’s gone, and so... what have you got left? It’s more of a challenge.

It’s a different challenge.

That sort of volcanic rumble... that’s for sure when you know you’re in an underground station. It’s that sense of connection to the ground, you know. I think that could be exploited to good effect in a railway station.’

Humphrey Ikin

The way we relate to the natural world was spoken about particularly in terms of how this impacted artists' colour palette, the materials used (both drawing on, and blending into, the landscape), the sound of the work that gets produced and the concerns inherent in work being made.

Auckland's urban sprawl and its maunga were seen as elements unique to the city. The climate – in particular, the prevailing winds that introduce a sense of unpredictability to a day – was also discussed as influencing work, whether consciously or sub-consciously.

Above all else, this relationship to the natural world was – at its best – not a token gesture, but deeply considered and expressed.

8.

Those we knew when we were young, None of them have stayed together.

All their marriages battered down like trees By the winds of a terrible century.

From

He Waiata mo Te Kare James K Baxter

I was a gloomy drunk.

You were a troubled woman, Nobody would have given tuppence for our chances, Yet our love did not turn to hate.

If you could fly this way, my bird, One day before we both die, I think you might find a branch to rest on.

I chose to live in a different way.

Today I cut the grass from the paths With a new sickle, Working till my hands were blistered.

I never wanted another wife.

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Humour and play A tendency towards humour

to counterbalance darker conversations was often mentioned, as was a quality of dry, awkward, self-deprecating humour and a sense of play: this included

playing with preconceptions and inviting interaction. Here,

there was a sense of warmth, of timidness, and of seeking a sense of community: art that invited its

audience in to share in on a joke.

Taika Waititi's Boy (2010).

33  Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa 

Looking round the room, I can tell that you Are the most beautiful girl in the... room.

(In the whole wide room)

From

The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room) Flight of the Conchords

And when you’re on the street Depending on the street I bet you are definitely in the top three Good looking girls on the street (Depending on the street) And when I saw you at my mate’s place I thought what... is... she... doing...

At my mate’s place How did Dave get a hottie like that to a party like this?

Good one Dave!!!

Ooohhhh you're a legend, Dave!

I asked Dave if he's going to make a move on you He's not sure I said “Dave do you mind if I do?”

He says he doesn't mind but I can tell he kinda minds but I'm gonna do it anyway

34 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

The design of delight A sense of play was seen to often characterise work, sometimes as a way to balance serious discussions but also as a fundamental element to how work was approached, including the way materials are used, and in the opportunities provided to celebrate small details.

‘The open question was how we would

characterise New Zealand design... What I came to was called the ‘design of delight’.

Something that has a lightness and freshness about it. It is neither opulent nor sterile.

It looks you in the eye with its no bullshit practicality and, whatever else it does, it bloody well works! It delights in what it does, who it is for, and how it is made. There’s a clarity and honesty about it, and a twinkle in its eye reflecting positive human energy. I see that as an authentic expression of an aspect of both the Māori and Pakeha character.’

Michael Smythe Te Ara i Whiti – Lightpath, a bright pink cycleway in central Auckland designed by Monk Mackenzie Architects and LandLAB. Photograph courtesy of Auckland Council.

35 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Humour and a sense of the fantastical was referred to as a device through which the experience of difficult conversations could be embued with warmth and aroha, but also more broadly to provoke an unexpected response and the types of conversations that might accompany it.

‘We have an interesting voice in film because we have a strong strand of fantasy. Not just in film - it’s in a lot of what we do: a very strong fantasist strand that’s matched by an unlikely pairing of social realism, and when it works it’s delicious. Unique. And then, you know, we go for the underdog story. It's a weird kind of social realism.

I think our grasp of fantasy and our unflinching wry eye on social things has from the beginning of our filmmaking produced a New Zealand voice with distinction in the world of story telling. It’s reflected in successful novels like Mister Pip and The Luminaries, and the latest box office hit - Hunt for the Wilderpeople – are all good examples.’

Gaylene Preston

36 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). Image: Kane Skenner.

‘Of course you have the heroic moments, but unheroic moments are interesting too, because it’s when you chance upon something that it becomes a gift. It’s not like you see this big thing and as you walk towards it, it gets bigger and bigger.

It's the sense of finding something for yourself that gives you a lovely childlike, playful feeling. It’s that sense of wonder that shouldn’t be underestimated.’

Lisa Reihana

37 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Rachel Walters’ Hau te Kapakapa – The flapping wind evokes the former abundance of wildlife in Myers Park when the Horotiu stream ran above ground. Three birds rendered in cast bronze slyly peek out from consumer packaging. The flapping wind incorporates humour and poignancy, while referencing the park’s original intent to be a place for children and families. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds, courtesy of Auckland Council.

The use of materials was described not only in terms of how they related to the environment and our natural resources (timber, glass and corrugated iron were cited across interviews) but also in terms of what might be communicated through different materials.

In Aotearoa, materials were seen as being used for unexpected and playful effects:

‘Bronze and marble carry tradition, convention, value and performance.

Lead is old, gloomy, soft, radiation-proof and poisonous. Wax is temporary, vulnerable.

Seung Yul Oh’s OnDo (2015). Photograph by Patrick Reynolds, courtesy of Auckland Council.

38 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Gold, well, you know!

I use many materials.

Most have a credible history in sculpture. I like the idea that this lulls the viewer into perilous acceptance of a work’s status. If it looks like art, it must be art.

Then I attempt to break those preconceptions, challenging the viewer.’

Greer Twiss

Interactivity Respondents identified an increase in participatory works, specifically in Auckland. This was seen to underscore two major trends: the first towards the general public's understanding and confidence with art, and the second in response to the sociopolitical climate and the desire for community, with art used as a connecting catalyst:

‘There’s a lot of participatory works. It’s almost like some of the stuff that’s happening in Auckland happened in America in the ‘60s.... we have these different kinds of movements which are probably generated out of the politics of the time. The way that money is or isn’t devolving into various communities.’

Lisa Reihana

39 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

The scope for art to be part of a conversation, rather than a statement with a full-stop, was emphasised:

‘Rather than just a built environment, [Hole of Yellow Archipelago at Auckland Art Gallery’s Creative Learning Centre] is more about kids coming in and sliding down things, going through tunnels… physically connecting the cosmos to our topography.’

Sue Gallagher

‘Initially, our public art was statuary and heroic, whereas I think we’re in another point in time, and we’re looking for things that can be fun and can bring that kind of... quality of the urban environment, and how we understand that environment to be.’

Lisa Reihana

One of the works discussed was Janine and Charles Williams’ temporary work Hauhake, featuring silhouette images of the Ngati Paoa waka, Kotuiti, painted with waterproof spray so that it only appears when it rains or gets wet. Photograph by David St George, courtesy of Auckland Council.

Humour and play was described as a defining characteristic of New Zealand work, particularly used to counterbalance serious or darker conversations. The quality of humour was described as wry with notes of social awkwardness, but there was also a sense of play, which was more direct: work that played with viewers' preconceptions, either in terms of materials or content, and that invited people to take part in the work.

Size and isolation The size and location of New Zealand was seen to have influenced creative work in three major ways: first, the physical distance from other countries and resources was seen to have fed into a pioneering tenacity: a practicality that encouraged innovation. Second, it resulted in a greater tendency towards interdisciplinary work. Third, it created a sense of unease: with oneself, with their place in the world, and with all that was perceived to be missing from their life experience.

Fiona Pardington, Still Life with Spinifex, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Starkwhite, New Zealand.

40 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

From

Scented Gardens for the Blind Janet Frame

41 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

People dread silence because it is transparent; like clear water, which reveals every obstacle — the used, the dead, the drowned, silence reveals the cast-off words and thoughts dropped in to obscure its clear stream. And when people stare too close to silence they sometimes face their own reflections, their magnified shadows in the depths, and that frightens them. I know; I know.

A sense of unease ‘It also seems to me that this lonely road through this indifferent landscape, this isolated space, is the story of cinema in New Zealand itself.’

Sam Neill in ‘Cinema of Unease’ New Zealand’s comparative isolation from the rest of the world was seen to result in an impatience with what the country had to offer, alongside the possibility that people’s ‘real life’ was to be had elsewhere: that this was not all there was.

This was described particularly in terms of our literature, from the specific kind of madness portrayed in Janet Frame’s writing to our own ‘Cinema of Unease’.

‘I’m a New Zealander still, of course, who grew up on a cluster of islands deep in the Pacific, looking outwards, restless.’

Paula Morris

‘I’ve often had the feeling that perhaps this is the edge of the world and maybe these narrow islands really are adrift and that we may all just topple over the edge into oblivion.’

Sam Neill in ‘Cinema of Unease’ The isolation was seen to give life experience a transitory nature or a sense of impermanence, since there was always the likelihood of leaving:

‘That sense of alienation, going to find some kind of answer, finding it’s not there, returning to where you were, still trying to find out.’

Charles Royal

‘Some not insubstantial poems have sprung from those very anxieties about our footing upon our own soil, our standing in the world.’

Alan Curnow, Book of New Zealand Verse (1951)

42 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Hotere, Black Painting (1969).

From

You’re hiding from me now

Fall at your feet

There’s something in the way that you’re talking

Crowded House

43 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Words don’t sound right But I hear them all moving inside you

This sense of impermanence manifested in a restlessness and refusal to solidify an identity in one’s work, occasionally resulting in a more outward-looking voice, steeped in longing and an unsure sense of self.

‘I don’t know what young people are like now, but when I was growing up I had a sense that we were far away from the world, and were looking at it from a distance - like being outside a big department store at night, and it’s closed, but you’re looking in at all this amazing stuff from out there on the cold street. That’s what it felt like then.

Over the years I’ve come to realise that – to quote Patricia Grace – “the world is where you are”. I think the realisation that we don’t need to yearn to be in a ‘real’ place – that all the possibilities of human life are here – is more prevalent now than when I was young.’

Don McGlashan

44 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

No longer longing to leave, finally ready to stay Characterised through history as the last stop before you left, Auckland has often been seen as the nation's gateway to the rest of the world. This mindset, in part, was considered to be one of the factors influencing a ‘temporary’ approach to building:

‘There’s stainless steel used like it’s timber. It’s that sort of lightness of touch, the ways in which elements connect, the ways in which they meet the ground.’

Andrew Tu‘inukuafe

‘New Zealanders do not build with any sense of the future. They build

with a sense of it being an asset on a register – it’s got a write-off period of 10 years and then it is over... perhaps it is because we are a young country. We are obsessed with the new.’

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins Despite this, there was a growing conviction that this was becoming less and less the case. For a number of reasons – including the increased ease of access to the rest of the world – Auckland was often described as no longer a place primarily for transition, but a place for permanence.

‘There’s this idea of touching the ground lightly, which Glenn Murcutt, the Australian architect and Pritzker Prize winner, has given voice to... And it makes total sense in Australia, where... indigenous people grab the bark off the eucalypt.

They would leave no trace and touch the ground lightly. But if you’re in New Zealand...

800 years ago, the hills must have been alive with people gouging into them, building pah, moving the dirt left, right, and centre. We don’t touch the ground lightly at all, that’s not our heritage. We dig in.

45 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

The motif that we’ve used here is... Donald Clarke, the great All-Black fullback, digging his heels in. Lancaster Park. You know, the heel going clunk and making a mark. Turangawaewae – “a place to stand”.’

Pip Cheshire

The paradox of size In addition to the country’s isolation, size was identified as an important influencing factor.

From a practical perspective, it was seen to impact on the scale and ambition of work that gets produced, both on an individual level and across a career.

‘The fact you can’t get in a truck and travel for months around this country making a living playing in

big pubs, like you can in Australia – that changes the kind of music you make here... You can’t name many New Zealand bands that work to the lowest common denominator - who try to write big dumb music that makes people happy. They might start off doing that but they don’t last long.

I think the very smallness of this country forces people to focus on what challenges them artistically, rather than what they think will make them successful.’

Don McGlashan Size also meant that artistic communities were small. One of the implications of this was that defining a creative vernacular was characterised as a difficult task, since each distinctive voice had so much potential to skew the average.

‘I find [the question of a New Zealand vernacular] unanswerable... [the country is] small enough still that it changes with every new addition.’

Emily Perkins Running alongside this conversation was the question of whether a distinctive voice necessarily reflected a ‘New Zealand voice’: whether the work itself captured some essence of New Zealand or whether it was simply a distinctive voice by someone who happened to be from New Zealand. The question of where and how these concepts overlap remained up for debate:

‘A style of New Zealand music? It’s such an elusive thing you know.

Douglas Lilburn, you know, the father of New Zealand composition?

One of his great achievements was that he did create a vernacular. He did create a certain, particularly

46 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

harmonic vernacular in his work. ... It’s very easy to connect that with being a New Zealand voice because he was explicit himself to communicate that message... but you kind of wonder if you put him in another environment and he made other music, would he become... say for example, in Australia, would he have made exactly the same music?’

Charles Royal Another implication of having small artistic communities was the idea of influence.

Small communities meant artists were likely to be aware of each other’s work, and be influenced by it in some way:

‘There are many answers to that question [of influence], which have to do with the strangely mid-Atlantic position we’re in musically: the

fact that New Zealand songwriters don’t immediately want to be American and they don’t immediately want to be British. They’re somewhere in between.

But the main thing is that people make a difference. Individuals create pathways that other people follow, so the fact that Chris Knox wrote all his songs... the fact that Martin Phillips and The Chills made an album called Submarine Bells makes a difference to everybody that’s heard it, because it’s so good.

I think that makes a difference to us, because as a group of writers, we’re all alone, perched on this rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea... you measure yourself against a song that you’ve heard next door, or from the next town over.

You listen, you get inspired, and then you try to come up with something as good.’

Don McGlashan

The necessity of collaboration Size was also a natural precursor to collaborative work, described as a unique characteristic of New Zealand work, particularly in the sense of cross-disciplinary modes of operating.

‘One of the things about New Zealand design, which is a real point of difference, is that we don’t have rock stars. We have teams.

Teamwork is our strong suit.

New Zealand doesn’t have any more brilliant designers per square metre than any other country. Our secret weapon — so secret that we don’t recognise it ourselves — is our capacity for cross-disciplinary teamwork. It is deeply embedded in our egalitarianism and the versatility essential to our early survival, and in our no bullshit eyeball-to-eyeball communication.

47 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

It has shown up in our film industry in a way that we take for granted, while overseas people remark on how well different disciplines on the film set get stuck in and support each other. We collaborate to do what it takes to keep the show on the road and get the job done.’

Michael Smythe

A pioneering tenacity New Zealand's size and isolation has also meant that it has cultivated a practical form of innovation to solving problems.

‘We use [plywood] because cars used to come in plywood containers, and they were really cheap to take apart and build with.’

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins

More than this, however, was a style of innovation that was referenced in grand ways: a sense of aspiring to ‘the impossible’ and a kind of ambition that embodied a sense of defiance.

‘I was making in Pursuit of Venus [infected] just as the financial global meltdown was happening, and I didn’t want that to suppress my art practice.

“No, no, no, just because the rest of the world has mucked up and ruined the economy, I won’t let it make me think any less expansively” – in fact, it was even more important to work on a grand scale, because I wanted to model that for a local audience... You can’t let those outside forces change the way you want your stories to be told. For me that was a political act.’

Lisa Reihana

‘[The Civic] is a piece of '20s craziness with no logic to it at all, but it's kind of what Auckland is, in a way, in that it's fake, funny, overly ambitious, miles too big for its own boots... [but] you don’t want people making architecture inspired by the Civic; you want architecture inspired by the idea of a man who believed he could build a theatre that then was almost unfillable in Auckland.’

The Civic Theatre. Photograph: Jonty Crane (jontynz.com).

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins

48 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

The country’s size and isolation were seen to have fed into an initial sense of unease and impermanence that in recent years has shifted to a greater readiness to stay: to ‘dig our heels in’ and to lay the groundwork for our existence in Aotearoa.

Lisa Reihana, detail in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–2017. Ultra HD video, colour, sound, 64 min. Image courtesy of the artist and New Zealand at Venice.

49 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

Alongside this, these twin characteristics were also seen to make defining a singular voice quite difficult (as one voice had the ability to skew the average) but, overall, had mainly positive influences, including feeding into our pioneering tenacity and our confidence in interdisciplinary work, affording a level of flexibility that has laid the groundwork for the work produced here.

Rachael Rakena, Te la Tangata (image: video still), 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Bartley + Company Art.

50 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

History and age Finally, our relationship to our own history was seen to be a fundamental driver in the way we approached work: Auckland was seen to be in a stage of adolescence, on the brink of coming to terms with its identity but still in a phase of tumultuous growth and change, resulting in an unstable identity.

Stonefields Housing Development. Photograph courtesy of Auckland Council.

51  Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa 

Our relationship to our history New Zealand's relationship to its own history was seen as a major influence on creative work.

In particular, it was seen to still be in a stage of adolescence, Auckland due to the rapid change it’s experienced and continues to experience.

This ongoing search for an identity has resulted in a certain freedom and impatience to reinvent and redefine ourselves, which in turn has manifested in art and in architecture.

‘It is actually really hard in Auckland to go somewhere your parents went. It is almost impossible to go somewhere your grandparents went. We are very, very worried that we might be out of sync with the rest of the world, neurotically so – so we destroy in order to make it brand‑new so we can prove to the world

52 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

that we’re up to date, and in that we keep tearing out our own ancestry, our own heart, our own consciousness.’

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins The sense of lost history was echoed in a number of interviews:

‘A Waiuku kaumātua, George Flavell, told me that until the 1970s, the dogs of Tāmaki – not actual dogs but spiritual guardians – could be heard wailing when someone died. But as the

city grew and became more crowded, the dogs drifted away. The city lost its spiritual essence.’

Brett Graham Building on this, the works which were held up as ‘Aotearoa at its best’ usually referenced history, as was the case with buildings like Auckland Art Gallery or Te Oro, or in works like in Pursuit of Venus [infected].

A general idea that emerged was that Auckland’s period of adolescence was starting to stabilise, with an increasing sense of maturity in the way work was approached – not only in terms of a strong sense of identity, but a deep respect and appreciation for the city’s history.

The confident adolescent One of the ways in which this stronger sense of identity was seen to be emerging was in how public spaces were being cultivated, with a strong sense of play and informality characterising even the central business district.

‘I think we are less formal. We do like to think we’re more egalitarian, even if we’re not. I personally think it’s the view a lot of people share, and I think as a nation we are a lot like that.’

Andrew Tu‘inukuafe

Freyberg Place. Photography by Bryan Lowe, courtesy of Auckland Council.

53 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

The uncertain adolescent The city’s youth was also contextualised within a sociological framework: not only was Auckland seen as a young city still grappling with its identity, it was a young city attempting to do so within a period of rapid change, having to deal with a host of challenges that threatened to further destabilise its sense of self.

‘I think our contemporary anxieties are things like the scale and speed of change. Many of us, all of us perhaps, struggle with how much change is happening, and the scale of it, and the speed of it, and that’s coming about with the change of technology, changes in demography. Changes in income levels, changes in what constitutes the nature of the family. Changes in religious convictions.

Changes in a whole diet, you know.

So much change on so many levels at such a pace is a source of a lot of anxiety for all of us going forward.

54 Mapping Delight: Towards a Creative Identity in Aotearoa

You know, if the world is changing so much and so fast... where now is my whare tupuna? Where is my centre? What can I comfortably call my place in the world?’

Charles Royal More than anything, this highlighted the fact that some of the best works were not only a point of stability – a clear expression of identity – but also helped facilitate and support the developing sense of identity within the city.

‘There’s a challenge to find what immutable... because we certainly know about change, but... what are the things that remain? What are the things that are immutable and constant?

This gets me all the way back into indigeneity again because

what can remain is the land.

What remains is water, what remains is sky, and so on.

These are the things... we can alter them hugely... but nonetheless the earth remains, the sea remains, the mountains remain, you know?’

Charles Royal

Auckland's young history and current period of tumultuous growth has contributed to an unstable sense of identity, seen in a continuous desire to reinvent oneself, particularly in terms of architecture.

While this is starting to stabilise, this is against a backdrop of contemporary concerns that threatens to destabilise or further fragment a sense of self: work was characterised as either embracing, supporting and representing this, or offering points of ‘stability’.

‘One of the reasons I like drinking water from [the water fountain in Western Park] is that Tuna Mau... is a historic place where Māori used to fish for eels... you can see where the water used to run down the hill. So I think it’s a really important place.

When I reach the top of the hill I always drink water and remember the people who gathered there, and worked in that whole valley. I think about the way that waterway reached the sea. I also think about it as a site of unrest, a place for the poor, and a birthplace of communism in Auckland.’

Lisa Reihana Western Park. Photograph courtesy of Western Park Ltd.

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Baxter, J. K. (2009). James K. Baxter: Poems.

Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Bell, W. & Stone, N. (Prod.) & Runga, B. (Songwriter).

(1995). Drive. Drive. New York: Epic.

Burke, V. & Campbell, G. & Jalfon, P. (Prod.), Neill, S. & Rymer, J. (Dir.), & Neill, S. (Nar.). (1995).

Cinema of Unease: A Personal Journey by Sam Neill. New Zealand: Top Shelf Productions.

Cotton, S. (1995). Faith [Oil on board]. Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki: Auckland.

Crump, B. (Based on), Neal, C., Noonan, M, Saunders, L. & Waititi, T. (Prod.) & Waititi, T. (Dir.). (2016).

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. New Zealand: Piki Films and Madman Entertainment.

Culbert, B. & Hotere, R. (1991). Pathway to the sea / Aramoana [Sculpture with fluorescent lights, paua shells, rocks].

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: Wellington.

Curnow, A. (1951). Book of New Zealand Verse, 1923–50. Christchurch: Caxton Press.

Froom, M. & Finn, N. (Prod.) & Finn, N. (1990). Fall at Your Feet. Woodface. United States: Capitol.

Muru, S. (1990). Te Waharoa O Aotea [sculpture].

Auckland Council Public Art Collection: Auckland.

Gee, M. (1979). Under the Mountain. Auckland: Puffin Books.

Oh, S. Y. (2015) OnDo [sculpture]. Auckland Council Public Art Collection: Auckland.

Graham, B. (2012). Hurstmere Green [Basalt sculpture].

Auckland Council Public Art Collection: Auckland.

Hotere, R. (1969). Black Painting [Acrylic on canvas]. Private collection.

Parekowhai, M. (2017). The Lighthouse [sculpture].

Auckland Council Public Art Collection: Auckland.

Hovell, J. (2011). Rakau Taonga series III, Puriri [Acrylic on canvas]. Private collection.

Paterson, R. (2016). Pukeiti [Glitter and synthetic polymer on canvas]. Gow Langsford Gallery: Auckland.

International Organization for Migration (IOM).

(2015). World Migration Report 2015. France: Imprimerie Courand et Associés.

Perkins, E. (2012). The Forrests. London: Bloomsbury Circus.

Lilburn, D. (2011). A Search for Tradition, A Search for Language. Wellington: Lilburn Residence Trust.

Little, J. (Prod.) & Yelich O'Connor, E. (Songwriter). (2013).

Tennis Court. Pure Heroine. Universal Music Group: Lava.

Manhire, B. (2001). Bill Manhire: Collected Poems.

Wellington: Victoria University Press.

McCahon, C. (1972). Muriwai: Necessary Protection [Acrylic on paper on board]. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki: Auckland.

Curtis, C., Gardiner, A. & Michael, E. (Prods.) & Waititi, T. (Dir.) (2010). Boy. New Zealand: Transmission Films.

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