Property Partner: Prime Property

Site: Greenock House, 108 Lambton Quay

Dates: 23 December 2014 - 25 January 2015 

Will you swim in a pool, river or stream this summer? Andrea Selwood's installation Flow Chart brings together different perspectives on our need to take care of Wellington’s streams - from the Kumutoto, close underground to where this work is sited in Lambton Quay, to that flowing through Houghton Bay on the South Coast of Wellington, from which this artwork takes it source. The work explores the often awkward disconnect and sense of loss we have today in regards to our natural environment, stressed by its placement in an office and retail space close to a stream site in the heart of the CBD.

Flow Chart evolved from an art collective project within the Houghton Bay community exploring the universal theme of water and the local pollution issue. In the installation the artist’s personal response to the common backyard stream is brought together with an objective, general chart and data based response through what she describes as ‘tactical cartography’, physically mapping Wellington’s steep valley geography and its sometimes lost underground waterways. These different approaches are deliberately presented at odds with each other.

A fax machine provides a facsimile of water data interpretations of a nameless or ‘lost river’ piped underground in the city. More than 20 metres of fax paper flows out at a rate of 20cm per day over four weeks. Running unchecked, this piles high, filling the shallow confines of the shop front window like old mail accumulating over the long holiday period... no one is at home, the space left vacant.

Public viewing from street level only.

Related Community Project Links

http://houghtonvalley.org.nz/

http://water-wheel.net/media-centre   

www.vimeo.com/album/86393