In the Community Garden, we discuss walking in Aotearoa and the upcoming walking summit this week in Auckland. We had the privilige of talking to Gay Richards, of Living Streets Aotearoa, to hear their thoughts on it all, and what they'd like to see in the future.
In the Community Garden this week, we talk to Richard Orjis from Wilde Projects about the intersections of colonisation and public form, queer ecologies, as well as discussing the history and projects ongoing in Tāmaki Makaurau's Albert Park.
Thank you to Wilde Projects for your time, arts and insights.
In the Community Garden, Oscar Perress was joined by Richard Orjis, of Queer Pavilion, to discuss the relation between Pride Month and Waitangi Day, an arts based response to Queer Liberation and Collective Empowerment.
A huge thank you to Orjis and all the artists who contributed to the pavilion.
Earlier in Rāhui, Oscar Perress spoke to Catalyse’s Denise Bijoux. Catalyse is a network of strategic and creative professionals who enable locally-led regeneration. They work alongside local people to make the places we are in together, the places that we collectively want them to be.
They discussed all things community and Covid-19, focussing on moving forward with some lessons we have learnt in our spaces and places. They started off discussing the differences in what and how some of us have learnt in lockdown, inequalities and the future.
The fight to emphasise the responsibility of big business when it comes to climate change continues. However, there are still viable opportunities for volunteering for sustainable initiatives here in Tāmaki. Robbie Sutherland is a low carbon specialist at Auckland Council, and he joined Mary-Margaret to talk about which initiatives are around this winter that we can join to protect our local environment. Mary-Margaret also asked Robbie about distinguishing the importance of opportunities for community action from the importance of governments committing to their word that climate change must be mitigated.
Liam Gerrard is an artist from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He is interested in the relationship between darkness and beauty, and often explores this in his work.
The natural world – hydrangeas and moths in particular – has long been a point of artistic interest to Liam, whose latest exhibition, After the Garden, ‘ruminates on the inexorable passing of time, on societal concepts of beauty and desire, and on the endless variety and motion of the natural world’.
Beth had a kōrero with Liam about After the Garden, which is showing at Sanderson until August 4th.
Once Were Gardeners is an exhibition by artist and carver Ngaroma Riley, currently showing at Season Gallery. It comprises a group of painted carvings that draw inspiration from a lecture of the same name by the late Moana Jackson.
The carvings reflect on and celebrate precolonial Māori life, and emphasise the fact that a core meaning of the term Māori is ‘natural’.
Beth had a kōrero with Ngaroma about Once Were Gardeners and the carving process.
This week in The Community Garden, Oscar chats to Cameron of D.I.PLY about designing and building an accesible furniture market with the help of others.
Oscar Perress talks to Tim Bowater of the living compost system up at OMG Auckland to discuss his work there, non linear climate change solutions and carbon sequestration.