#ōtautahi christchurch

[hamishpetersen]

MA Thesis: "No, we don't need you."

“No, we don’t need you.” Māori contemporary artists, feral poetics, and the possibility of decolonial methodologies for Pākehā/Tauiwi arts-workers.

Abstract

This thesis annunciates the mechanics of coloniality as a force upon Māori curatorial and contemporary artistic practice, and pairs this understanding with learnings from Pākehā/Tauiwi attempts, including my own, to disobey coloniality through relational practices of research and writing towards decolonial ends.

Part 1 addresses the nature of coloniality as a system of power determining the nature of the cosmos, self-servingly and falsely cast as a universal truth in the image of European subjects. I attend to the ways in which Māori artists and writers have negotiated the claims of Pākehā/Tauiwi critics and curators on the terms of engagement that define their art and lives. Chapter 2 attends to Te Maori (1984-7), while chapter 3 brings these ideas to bear on Jacqueline Fraser’s Matakitaki (“The View”) (1993), and exhibitions Whare (2002) and New Zealand Maori Culture and the Contemporary Scene (1966). What becomes clear is the ongoing cosmological struggle of Māori artists to exhibit on the terms they set and have the full implications of their work rub up against a colonial artworld and a disciplinary art history.

Part 2 beings with an exchange with Alex Monteith about the collaborative project Kā Paroro o Haumumu: Coastal Flows Coastal Incursions (2014 –) and its decolonial potential, which alerted me to the disciplinary role of art history as colonial instrument. My poetic, autoethnographic practice becomes increasing visible here and in the final two chapters with Martin Awa Clarke Landgon, Ana Iti, and their artworks. These conversations and encounters demonstrate Māori conceptions of relationality and experience in the mire of neo- colonial Aotearoa, while methodologically keeping me conditionally, bodily accountable as I write about them.

I take these relationships up as offers calling for reciprocity. In response, I produce a text that—in its methodological and written reflexes between history, conversations, theory, artworks, reflections, and poetics—provides an uncertain, feral writing for our irreconcilable relationships.

Submitted November 2021

[city-flag-tournament]

✯ Round 1 ✯ Match 32 ✯

The current flag of Iisalmi, North Savo, Finland

Propaganda:

None

vs

The current flag of Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand (Ōtautahi, Waitaha, Aotearoa)

Propaganda:

This flag manages to include a lot of obvious and subtle symbolism. The red triangle is a reference to the southern alps--a main feature of the South Island. The four Lymphads are in reference to the four ships that arrived in the port of Lyttleton to bring British colonials to Christchurch. The lamb and wheat are in reference to the industry around Christchurch--mainly farming. the Bishop's hat is in reference to like, *christ* *church*. Except the goddamn church had been under repairs for 13, 14 years.

Tournament Policies: ✯ Choose the flag that's more meaningful to you! ✯ Be respectful of place names and cultural symbols in your commentary! ✯ If you want to submit propaganda, you may do so at the submission form linked in the pinned post. It will only be included if it is submitted before the next post with that flag is drafted and will be included in all subsequent posts the flag is featured in.

[musicofaotearoa]

MODEL HOME

Model Home is an indie band from Christchurch | Ōtautahi They're currently working on new music My Favourites!

Find them SPOTIFY INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK

[artisthomes]

Home of Ngaio Marsh in Cashmere, Christchurch, Aotearoa

[dreamingofacity]

This is Pūtaringamotu.

10 years of this blog, and counting. Today I feel moved to post! Hello to anybody still on Tumblr :)

[onenicebugperday]

@wateringstone submitted: What I think is a Huhu Grub (Prionoplus Reticularis) at the beach. Not it's usual habitat, so think it must have been in some driftwood that washed up. (Ōtautahi/Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand)

This fella doesn't really have the correct shape to be a huhu grub. Huhu beetles are longhorn beetles, and their larvae are pretty distinctly shaped with a flared head that tapers off down the rest of the body. This fella looks more like a scarab. I'd put my money on a large sand scarab (Pericoptus truncatus)- looks the correct shape for that species and also, as the name implies, they are found in sandy habitats :)

[have-you-been-here]

Christchurch Red Zone, Ōtautahi, Aotearoa New Zealand

[ayin-me-yesh]

How People in Aotearoa Can Help Palestine

Upcoming Protests Around the Motu

Saturday 21/10/2023

Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland – Aotea Sq rally and march to US Embassy, 2 pm. Event page.

Kirikiriroa / Hamilton – Opposite Flynn Park, 1 pm. Event page.

Pōneke / Wellington – Steps of Parliament, 1pm. Event page.

Whanganui – Tram Shed, 11:30 am. Event page.

Ōtautahi / Christchurch – Bridge of Remembrance, 1 pm. Event page.

Saturday 28/10/2023

Pōneke / Wellington – March Civic Sq to Parliament. 2 pm. Event page.

Write to Your MP / the PM

There are suggestions for writing to your local MP at the main webpage shared below.

And here's an additional letter you can send to the PM.

[kolajmag]

COLLAGE ON VIEW

Mutability

Johann + Edwards at Christchurch Art Gallery in Christchurch, New Zealand through 9 February 2025. Transformation is at the heart of “Mutability–propositions to an unknown universe”. It features the work of Victoria Edwards and Ina Johann, Ōtautahi Christchurch-based artists who have collaborated as “Edwards + Johann” since 2007. Edwards + Johann use a range of different materials and processes–photography, drawing, collage, sculpture and more–often layering these over each other so that their works evolve through multiple states. “Edwards + Johann: Mutabilities—propositions to an unknown universe” combines a selection of works from the last five years with new sculptures–some still in a state of “becoming”–to deliver an intriguing and transporting art experience. Read More

*****************************

Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE | GET A COPY

SIGN UP TO GET EMAILS

[hamishpetersen]

Eating at...

An impromptu text written after eating at the restaurant Londo, in Ōtautahi Christchurch before moving to the UK. PDF designed by me for fun.

https://londo.bar

Eating at

LONDO(3)

Papa is a māmā.

After we finished our desert, my dad said he felt like he had been for a walk in the hills for the night and was arriving back at the car, wishing he didn’t have to go home. The last time I saw my parents, I told them we were moving to Britain; to go farming and vist standing stones, maybe live in the highlands and save some cash caring for plants so that C could make more work in the studio. A way to vacate our selves, or position ourselves elsewhere, requiring us to span a distance between our present and possible versions. We sought out how another piece of land, which knew our old people, might move us so.

Canteloupe is canned fruit salad and eighties holiday sunsets. Anti-anxiety herbal remedy in the first course. Granita disappears and comes back in the pasta. First pork in five years. Blooded salt, melonwater running.

A friend has started their PhD to understand how manipulations to the environment of carrot crops on the canterbury plains can speed their biennial seed cycle. Grow a strong root one year, send up great umbels of flower to set seed the next. A big investment. Canterbury’s immense stakes in the global carrot seed market makes for an abundance of research funding in the area. 

Carrot as speculative capital. Dusty. Aniseed sweet. Of a certain age. Ryegrass gone silver in 4:33pm light. Will be a different shade tomorrow. Carrots have been simmering in that pot for years now. Lorna got married last week! Jewelled rods accross the plate. One of these days the chestnuts will be full and ripe enough to make pie. Caramel roots buoyed by romesco; whatever ectasy that is. Sit down, saucepan in the middle, over-ripe toms and the last basil. Talk for hours. 

In Riverton we bought a few tiny Urenika seed potatoes. More like shrivelled yams than our idea of potatoes. I put them in the ground before Christmas and as the zuchinnis paled and powdered themselves I dug up the smallest bowlful of finglerling tubers from the mass of stems. I had to leave thousands of tiny siblings in the ground — marbles who turned glinting, giggling, glassy when rinsed. The following Feburay my flatmate got excited about putting winter greens in and dug up the potatoes that had grown from those abandoned gems. Twice as many, twice the size. Sometimes doing less is better. The tohunga who had these for dinner for centuries really knew what they were doing. 

Sailing a crisp across Lake Buttersauce. Invisible sechuan heat tempered by lemons. When well-boiled, they hold a texture of sandy loam that melts in contact with saliva. We attend a soil cupping. Notes of burnt sugar and echinacea. Abstracted, well-seared cow rectangle galumphs around the table awaiting affection. We take the potatoes for a victory lap.  

Buckwheat filled the garden bed with paddly green leaves until it was warm enough for the tomatoes go in. Hearted leaves  now dangle yellow on jointed scaffolding. Once chantilly cream dollops attracting hoverflies and floating in the breeze on reddish stems, the flowers have become seeds; pyramidial, black. 

When husked, their stony, roasted innards are steeped, syruped, and whipped frozen with cream. Toasted barley tea. Infintely more than bread and beer. The land given maximum and methodical love that it may return; animate. Not just land but lond. From before. Not just papa but Papatuuaanuku. The soil and the waters. Your islands or mine. We go deep into the tunnels to leave our offerings. Can I make a golden silk from this carrot, a cicada’s worship in a cup? Fill it up. Now cannot be before. Look after the new growth in th old place.

When we sat down to dinner my mom handed me a brown envelope. This dinner was my birthday present and I knew there would be a small card. My parents are reliable in these formalities. Small theatre. Inside the card my father had written in his quickest, way-out-the-door handwriting, “You are going to fly away. Take me with you.”

A low, 5:53 lemon sun and the crunch of another evening.

Rats eat the fallen walnuts overnight. 

Pull the drapes

[lord-numbskull]

guys i just wanna share that my first 35mm roll came back and

i freaking love this film

and i am a Big fan of sheep also

taken at Awaroa/Godley Head in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand

[saltlickmp3]

Hiii Mack, firstly welcome back to tumblr!!! Secondly I come here asking you for music recs once more!!!! Do you have any like maybe alternative indie ish even rock bands form aotearoa you could suggest? I’m wanting to listen to more musicians from here, but so far all I have is crowded house and the Beth’s!

hihihihiiiiiii lin yes omg ofc i have more music recs heheeeee

(i was only for for a little but hehe thanks i'm happy to be back here too)

OKAYYYYY AOTEAROA BANDSSSSSS

first of all i'm gonna plug the band Sandfly they only have two songs out but i know those guys & they're really cool i went in a bookshop in sydney with the singer/bassist once heheeee

uhm i bought self titled the album Males the other day & it's pretty cool, dunedin band from early 2010s i think, it's like indie rock

ebony lamb had an album out a couple months ago & she's pretty cool, the singles are a good place to start

aldous harding and marlon williams are folk-adjacent musicians from lyttleton (arty town just outside of ōtautahi christchurch) and they both do some cool stuff

& there's this whole thing called The Dunedin Sound from the 80s & 90s, most of the best nz music is from there/then imo - the two starters for that would be the soundtracks to the films Scarfies & Topless Women Talk About Their lives - there's lots of bangers on those <3

[bravecrab]

Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland just had severe flooding last night. Insurance companies are saying this is going to be the most claims since the Ōtautahi/Christchurch earthquake. And this is from severe rain. I hope this is the wake up call we need to start taking climate change seriously in this country. People were suffering enough with inflation and a housing crisis, this needs to radicalize people. At least two of our political parties want to invest more in fossil fuels. We need to protect people, we need to make sure the displacement doesn't help the rich profit (read up about the gentrification of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina). I hope my fears are unfounded, I hope the reality proves me wrong.

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: The corner of Gloucester and Colombo Streets, Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, circa early 1964, in stereo. Photo by MacDonald S Reed