Chains
28 July to 16 August 2014
- Piupiu Kaiti (One third chain, Gaddums Hill, Gisborne)
12 salvaged pine battens, wire and nails
2013
660 x 1200 mm
$2,800 - Hieke Kaiti (One and a third chain, Gaddums Hill, Gisborne)
45 salvaged pine & totara battens, wire and nails
2013
1220 x 2450 mm
$6,500 - Piupiu Kaiti (Quarter chain, Gaddums Hill, Gisborne)
10 salvaged pine battens, wire and nails
2013
660 x 1200 mm
$2,800 - Piupiu Kaiti (Quarter chain, Gaddums Hill, Gisborne)
10 salvaged pine battens, wire and nails
2013
660 x 1200 mm
$2,800 - Korowai Kaiti (Single chain #2, Gaddums Hill, Gisborne)
salvaged pine battens, wire and nails
2013
1220 x 1775 mm
$6,000
Korowai & Piupiu - Chain Series
The work in this series explores past and present relationships, human and environmental, utilising the metaphoric potential of the ubiquitous fence batten, common to so much of the New Zealand countryside, to form new allegories. The unit of measure referred to in the title, the 'chain,' was the surveyors standard prior to the 1960's, measuring 22 yards or 66 feet (20 metres). Titles such as: ' 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 or Single chain' refer to the approximate distance covered by the battens in each work in their original working context, ie. Spaced along a fenceline.
Fences can be read as a potent symbol of ownership, land use and subdivision. The introduced species Pinus Radiata, so dominant in our landscape, has been used extensively for the purpose of fencing, gradually replacing the original Totara timber used prior. While farming is not an exclusively Pakeha occupation it is possible to read the Pine fence batten as a symbol of European tenure of the land.
These battens have been in or on the ground for many decades. Time and weather have created the visible patination, lichens have grown, making the exotic new clear pine now part of the land in which it stands - naturalising the exotic, an allegory to the way migrant communities over time and generations become part of the new land they inhabit. The surface of the battens are burnt and scraped revealing their underlying material has also been changed. The arrangement of these suggest the form of a Korowai (fine cloak) or a Piupiu (flax skirt) - something representing indigenous New Zealand, mana whenua, both fragility and strength and the offering of and need for protection.
Paulus McKinnon November 2013