in Island (S)hopping, Blue Oyster Art Project Space, 2005
Video loop (3 stills from sequence), monitor in the wall, white sugar. Work inspired by foreshore debate.
A crown made of sugar cubes filmed at Aromoana while the incoming tide dissolved and then reversed to reinstate its symbolic reference. Works either side are by Lee Houlihan (left) and 'Kaipai' by Liz Bryce (right).
Here we are in New Zealand, island hoppers discussing our origins * we are * this, * that, * of something else; the New Zealand identity has multiple voices. Each artist explores identity in relation to those circumscribed or implied both within and outside their geographic and cultural boundaries of our South Pacific island nation. The island (s)hopper or fl*neur choses as he/she negotiates a historically woven space where the warp is meet by the weft of reflective voices. In this rhythm of intersections the exhibition is intended to suggest both arrival and departure points as one would enact through island hopping; gathering the gestures of the last locale into a synthesis of experiences and refractive responses. The aspects that we are interested in discussing in this exhibition are based on post-colonial issues and the continuous evolution of our sense of what the New Zealand identity is. It will toy with the political issues involved, use the souvenir, discuss land issues, colonisation, commodity and the blurring of cultural identity through globalisation.
Di Halstead, 2005