INTERSECTION (TE WHANGANUI-A-TARA) [2003]

public art project – inkjet prints / mixed-media. (1m x 1m x 1m)

 

INTERSECTION (TE WHANGANUI-A-TARA) is a site-specific public work that resituates historical photographic images detailing street life of a significant urban location in the city of Wellington (New Zealand) back into the contemporary site. The images—spanning over one hundred years—are sourced from local and national archives. These archival images of the site are superimposed digitally and then re-inserted in the present-day site in the form of a reflective cube. The reflective nature of the cube acts as a type of mirror that simultaneously reflects the present day activities of the site over photographs of the site’s historical past. The original site—Te Whanganui-A-Tara— was a key indigenous Maori point of arrival into the city which today has been paved over and erased. The work uses the visual void of a black cube to mark this place of historical erasure in an attempt to reinstate it.

 

Installation view: Civic Square (Wellington, New Zealand)