A contemporary east Auckland art gallery has commissioned two new works as part of a “groundbreaking” global alliance of artists and writers in 28 countries responding to climate change.
Te Tuhi in Pakuranga is featuring works by Jae Hoon Lee and Tia Barrett as part of the ongoing World Weather Network group project.
The gallery commissioned the works, Lee’s Ocean Rain, Part 1 and Barrett’s Tuhononga (Cluster and Connection), which are curated by Janine Randerson.
Lee is a self-proclaimed “cultural wanderer” who grew up in Seoul, South Korea, before moving to the United States in 1993 and then to New Zealand in 1998.
His work is the first of a two-part film project exploring mushroom-like stone formations created by geological forces in Taiwan’s Yehliu Geopark.
“The weather conditions and large seas have altered the geography into uncanny landforms the artist speculates could become stranger still as the climate drives larger seas and erodes the coastline,” the gallery says.
Barrett is an emerging Maori moving-image practitioner and photographer based in Hamilton while her current art practice is “firmly grounded in celebrating mana wahine Maori identity (Maori women’s rights) and deepening her connection to whenua me o nga tupuna (land and ancestors) through a lens-based practice”.
Her contribution to the new showcase at Te Tuhi is a film that’s the first of her two-part project.
It was developed through an “ongoing observational learning journey” in the South Island and features footage assembled during a recent collective walk from Waitaki to Aoraki.
“As part one … the film records the appearances, sensations, and sounds of specific moments and weather significant to Barrett during the hikoi,” Te Tuhi says.
The gallery has joined 27 other arts organisations globally in 2021 to form the World Weather Network.
It describes the project as a “groundbreaking constellation of ‘weather stations’ located across the world in oceans, deserts, mountains, farmland, rainforests, observatories, lighthouses and cities”.
“Since June 21, 2022, artists and writers have shared ‘weather reports’ in the form of observations, stories, images and imaginings about their local weather and our shared climate, creating an archipelago of voices and viewpoints on a new global platform.
“Whilst each organisation reports on their local weather, every one of these ‘weather stations’ is connected by the over-heating of the world’s atmosphere.
“The World Weather Network presents alternative ways of responding to the world’s weather and climate, and is an invitation to look, listen, learn and act.”
