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Exterior view of Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland  Image: Samuel Hartnett

The pragmatics of New Zealand’s geographical isolation means that often the internet mediates the information you receive in ways other than algorithmically. As a maker, dealing with spatial translation of weight, size, materiality, colour etc through a screen is not ideal. After months of interpreting OB’s objects/work/ideas from 2-dimensional surfaces, for the Te Uru project, I was keen to acknowledge this mediated translation in a different way.

 My initial idea is to begin with the three highlights from Roseanne’s text:

 – bring the object to light, or life

 – “look among” (Elkins, 39) the object

 – dynamic forms of encounter and exchange

I’d like to add a story from a friend to these snippets. A practical person who doesn’t like jewellery to get in the way of daily requirements, early in the year she was gifted a chunky steel bangle and contrary to her expectations, she has not yet taken it off except to pass through airport security. She says, “the bangle tethers me to right now, I love the sound reminders when it knocks against hard surfaces and the way it makes me think about how I move in the world as well as the spaces I’m moving through.” 

I love both this anecdote and the idea. My thoughts are to make a collection of wearable jewellery works inspired by both the interior and exterior architecture of Te Uru, specifically for the audience to wear while visiting the gallery. There could also be an option to write a comment or post images to a live photo wall in the gallery using a social media aggregator. An aggregator brings together multiple social media sites eg. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter using hashtags, displaying the user-generated content in a live feed.

Image Inspirations

Hanging lantern, light diffuser located in Gallery 2.  Image: Samuel Hartnett (Following images harvested from https://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/te-uru/)

Cut out on back wall of Gallery 2. Image: Samuel Hartnett

Exterior view of building. Image: Samuel Hartnett

 Looking from inside to out Gallery 2. Image: Samuel Hartnett

 

Wall detail. Image: Samuel Hartnett (Following images harvested from https://www.archdaily.com) 

Looking from inside to out. Image: Samuel Hartnett

Staircase detail. Image: Samuel Hartnett