Ground floor, 19 Tory Street
Wellington city
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Space for new ideas in Wellington Te Whanganui ā Tara
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Property Partner: Wellington City Council.
1 Clyde Quay Wharf.
20 July - 20 August, 2016
Images: Andrea Selwood and Gabrielle McKone
Holding up a lens to our environment, two artists and a scientist collaborate in an exchange project (Taiwan/NZ) which invites the public into workshops and discussions to create work and display on the waterfront to explore a future shock reality and shared interpretation of climate change. This “what will happen when” diorama of rising sea levels offers a miniature view of our coastline as if submerged underwater.
Recent extreme weather events have flipped our perception of “normal”. Unseasonal Change re-imagines an alien arboreal landscape of tomorrow. DIY artmaking is combined with science experiment to help us learn in a fun way to situate our own backyard within the wider issue of global warming.
Responding to rising sea levels we ask the question; how will plants cope with increased saltwater absorption and what are the impacts on our human food chain?
Kids and all comers are invited to participate in make-and-grow crystal tree workshops activating the same transformative properties as ‘Mystical Garden’ toy chemistry sets. The resulting arboretums-in-a jar relate the idea of the greenhouse effect and also form a miniature mass plantation of an art installation. These strange trees can be understood as an individual keepsake reminder of the difficult truth (climate change) and portion of a colourful “unseasonal Christmas” lit display.
Find this installation incubating within the microclimate of shopfront windows at two sites situated close to the waterfront and marina. Here, visitors can observe the changing states of the trees through the salt crystallization process, which develops over the time of the exhibition.
A forum closes the event with public invited to listen to “experts-in-the field” to inform deeper discussion at a community level, of the specific effects of climatic changes impacting on our Wellington coastal communities.