Environment & romanticism

Installation work about the natural environment and taking a romantic (direct, sensual, rather than intellectual) approach to experiencing it.

This was a little house which you could step into, with a 2 minute image and sound sequence of the sea and plants around Oamaru harbour at night & sunrise.

The installation was intended to give the viewer a heightened awareness of nature and the boundaries between it and the domestic interior.

In 1995, a new waste water treatment plant paid for by ratepayers began operating. Previously, sewerage had been discharged almost untreated into the sea, washing up, very noticeably, on the local beaches.

This was a short video in which nature, as the lily, became a monstrous, chaotic force.

The story used everyday domestic experiences - preparing food, watching television, smelling flowers - as a starting point.

Making the video involved visual concept exploration, developing a camera script, storyboarding, set and prop construction, filming, directing actors, creating a soundtrack, and was edited using a tape-to-tape editing suite.

No computers involved (1996, art school in small town New Zealand!)

A walk-in installation, in Wellington, of projected images and sound from the Charleston rainforest on the West Coast near Greymouth. The idea was for city people to be able to experience something of what it was like to be in the forest.

Images of the lush, untouched forest, as well as areas which had been destroyed by logging were shown, projected onto eight vertical textile drops, running with a soundtrack for a four hour show.

From the first "interrogative drawing" class at art school. We were given a few hours to develop an artwork in small groups, and then present and explain it.

We were all from outside of Oamaru, so often used the immediate environment as a source of both ideas and materials.

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