Settlement, (2024)

Blackberry, Nr.8 Wire, Steel Rods

Collaborative Work with Pip Rayner and Grace Bella as part of the exhibition “Are We There Yet?” at Meanwhile Gallery

Photo Credit: Chloe Mason

To Build a Nest

Nidification, or “Nesting Instinct” is often driven by an urge in pregnant animals to protect one’s offspring, but also a common technique to shield oneself from potential predators or environmental life-threatening factors.

Thematically, within the so called “art world”, we can see a clear trend of exhibitions orbiting around understandings of “Home”, “Heimat”, “Shelter”. Whilst observing this notion the mind wanders in two directions: What unites makers in their magnetic pull to draw attention to this field of everyday mundaneness? And can we, as a collective of three multigenerational international female artists, add an interesting angle to the potpourri of existing works?

With the geo-political climate taking a strong pull towards conservatism and nationalism, in support of white supremacy, whilst simultaneously witnessing multiple genocides and the climate crisis shrinking the habitat for humans to live - there is an urgency to concentrate our creative focus on making home as a human right. To be able to call a place “home” is a prerogative mainly controlled and clenched fisted held by the beneficiaries sitting at the root of causing the imbalance in the first place: Us. Europeans. Colonisers. White people. Westerners. 

All three of us artists are based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, brought together by the appreciation of each other’s art practice, however, we came to Aotearoa at different points in our lives. In the preparation process for this show, our conversations quickly aimed to strip back the layers of western propagated imagery of idyll and family, sharpening our focus on the basic need of safety. Some of us have not called any other place than Aotearoa their home, some of us whilst being grateful and acknowledging the privilege of being able to live here, would say home is somewhere else. And some even use this weird word “Heimat” – is that in itself not a signal of failed integration altogether?

Chiming into the choir of reflections from the creative communities around the concept of home, we have come to understand that one of the first necessities is to dismantle the idea of binarity within the process of finding the essence of what home is. Home as a concept is finding space within oneself to sit with seemingly contrary emotive perceptions.

It is not the colonised system we live in that allows us to call Aotearoa “home”. Our stay is granted thanks to the most important, highly debated and yet undebatable piece of paper in this country: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It was crucial to me to acknowledge as tangata Tiriti, that we hold a responsibility and instead of ducking our heads in guilt and white fragility, we need to use our spaces to hold up the integrity and respect of the relations to tāngata whenua. 

“Settlement” is made of Blackberry - which as a fruit is delicious and available for all to pick, but as an intrusive weed it is known to aggressively impact on the native biodiverse landscape of Aotearoa. We acknowledge Ngāti Kapumanawawhiti ki Kuku, Ngāti Tūkorehe and Huhana Smith on whose whenua the blackberry has grown. It is a humbling process to extract and dislodge the blackberry with its strong roots. Removing blackberry created new spaces for native plants to grow. But like any structures of power, one experiences a thorny fight back. 

It is worth considering if the privilege that gives us shelter might also obstruct our view.

Link to Jane Smolira’s “Reflection” Essay about the exhibition “Are We There Yet?”