Liking the vibe?

Queer time, redux version

Hey Mel, temporal drag eh? Great! Here's a selection of presentation diagrams that I made a couple of years ago in an attempt to summarise the positions of the panellists in the roundtable discussion Theorising Queer Temporalities which was moderated by:

Elizabeth Freeman.

The panellists (mostly Duke University Press authors...)

& the Question

(remember when we had that question: what is contemporary homosexuality? If we had a question now, would it be what is a contemporary portrayal of a queer cinematic character in the context of public space in Manchester Street in post-quake Otautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand? Hmmnn not so catchy)

The emotional ecosystem according to Planet Full of Unicorns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43AFIZajo2c

This would, in Sedgwick's terms, be a fine example of paranoid camp.

I think we should never meet

I was immediate and dramatic and the river crossed the street.

I have raw emotions, personal feelings, I lay bare my private world to the public gaze.

Everything is autobiography, mine is four and I am the fifth. 

I'm in recovery.

Frances Stark, Nothing is Enough, 2012, video, 14 min 53 sec

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2015/09/frances-stark-at-the-art-institute-of-chicago/

skype - brainstormoodboard

[25/11/15 21:07:46] liz allan: Gooieavond?
[25/11/15 21:08:21] Rachel O'Neill: mooning
[25/11/15 21:08:35] liz allan: mooning scribe!
[25/11/15 21:10:02] Clare Noonan: Woop
[25/11/15 21:10:19] liz allan: yuss!
[25/11/15 21:10:30] liz allan: Call started
[25/11/15 21:35:14] liz allan: http://www.michaellett.com/exhibition/?show=254&s=Implicated+and+Immune
[25/11/15 21:35:33] Rachel O'Neill: http://www.newzealandpainting.co.nz/
[25/11/15 22:12:58] Rachel O'Neill: http://woahmanchesterstreet.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/from-handkerchief-code-to.html?zx=7769d0faecf3fabd
[25/11/15 22:18:00] liz allan: my road was built for a certain kind of activity that no longer takes place
[25/11/15 22:18:24] liz allan: I am a road that no longer takes place
[25/11/15 22:19:03] liz allan: Im recovering from a post-internet context in real time
[25/11/15 22:19:58] liz allan: I'm an exposure method
[25/11/15 22:20:42] Rachel O'Neill: It's not an urban movie it just has a building in it
[25/11/15 22:21:54] Rachel O'Neill: cement is very intense
[25/11/15 22:23:05] Clare Noonan: Its less about the street and more about the footpath
[25/11/15 22:24:49] liz allan: where doesn't the street stop the footpath's intensity
[25/11/15 22:24:50] Clare Noonan: Broadsheet broads
[25/11/15 22:26:31] liz allan: I'm waiting for celebrity
[25/11/15 22:27:06] Clare Noonan: Is she like b grade or is she like f+ grade
[25/11/15 22:27:35] liz allan: I want my cover!
[25/11/15 22:28:13] Rachel O'Neill: A pussyfoot stole my computer
[25/11/15 22:29:40] Clare Noonan: Then I just realised it was wind in the willows
[25/11/15 22:29:54] liz allan: My thinking is Christchurch or bust!
[25/11/15 22:30:03] Clare Noonan: Cunting down the avon
[25/11/15 22:30:35] liz allan: My drive for coherence
[25/11/15 22:30:43] Rachel O'Neill: I was on drugs at the time but I trusted reality
[25/11/15 22:31:25] liz allan: Where the street ends I begin
[25/11/15 22:31:49] liz allan: I'm stuck in the middle of my own meeting
[25/11/15 22:33:17] liz allan: I am begging to google my denouement
[25/11/15 22:33:33] Clare Noonan: Well need some road coads for the middle
[25/11/15 22:34:32] liz allan: where's my trailer ??
[25/11/15 22:34:49] Rachel O'Neill: Orgy in the middle?
[25/11/15 22:34:50] Clare Noonan: I parked it in Mel's garage
[25/11/15 22:35:27] liz allan: make-up ain't gunna cover my character flaws
[25/11/15 22:35:42] Clare Noonan: Secret silence broken. I only just joined social media yesterday
[25/11/15 22:35:51] liz allan: for real?
[25/11/15 22:36:12] Clare Noonan: Begins with I ends with gram
[25/11/15 22:36:20] Clare Noonan: I gram
[25/11/15 22:39:18] Rachel O'Neill: regionalist my property, says outsider
[25/11/15 22:40:14] liz allan: Salacious headline wraps fish and one scoop
[25/11/15 22:41:44] liz allan: My leading ladi is 1980's Chch
[25/11/15 22:42:33] Clare Noonan: There's nothing straight about the Avon
[25/11/15 22:43:22] Rachel O'Neill: take a bow, dudebros
[25/11/15 22:43:49] liz allan: rubble be my wardrobe, city planning be my confessional
[25/11/15 22:43:53] Clare Noonan: SOMETHING OUT OF A CAR WINDOOOWWWW
[25/11/15 22:45:24] Rachel O'Neill: Dust on the cusp
[25/11/15 22:45:44] liz allan: I was a straight road that longed for more
[25/11/15 22:46:13] Rachel O'Neill: More is my middle name
[25/11/15 22:47:47] Rachel O'Neill: the models are not post street they just seem to be over street
[25/11/15 22:49:20] Rachel O'Neill: Less is my middle name
[25/11/15 22:50:02] liz allan: the extras are carefully cast road cones and they're hi vis
[25/11/15 22:51:14] liz allan: I was cast asunder and I came out a leading ladi
[25/11/15 22:53:29] liz allan: I was cast as under and I came out on top

What she said

Testing confessional mode alonside a narrative/spatial twist of pre-flight 'birdshit architecture'

I'll cry at 20,000 feet.

Liar.

I'll cry and my tears will fall and form perfume bottles.

More like ordinary boring stupid containers.

Then, I'll walk and cry but that's different.

Sir, you'll look ugly. 

What a relief?

The hills behind the city are puffy. 

Puffy, puffy, effing puffy. Blah.

When I hear you crying I'll want to cry but I won't feel deep enough, really.

You will never.

No, Sir. I will never. 

I will never, too. I know less about nothing than you about me. 

They're boarding seats 1-10. 

Fark. Don't laugh.

These are sad sounds, Sir.

Whatever. They're my tears?

They're not mine, I can tell you that.


Note: testing confessional mode with a narrative/spatial twist of 'birdshit architecture' . I first heard of this term via my friend Rosie Evans: http://journal.enjoy.org.nz/love-feminisms/urban-form-and-the-gendered-lens

Gilbert and George say-: fuck HIM

"A manifesto? No, this is a diary of urban mayhem..." 

Newadays

Just checking this new interview between Johanna Fateman and Wynne Greenwood, aka was Tracey and the Plastics:

http://artforum.com/slant/id=56168

She talks about Tracey and the Plastics (a girl band where she played all the band mates):

JF: Yeah. So, with these characters, and their interactions, I feel like you broached some sensitive stuff, new territory. You were looking at the dynamics of a “girl band.” While our scene was radically honest about a lot of stuff—or wanted to be—no one was really publicly addressing tension and dysfunction between feminists, or specifically between feminist bandmates.
WG: I don’t think I set out knowing I would explore how women are creative together, but from the very beginning there was tension in Tracy + the Plastics. I remember the first time Cola spoke directly to Tracy. It’s missing from this show because I couldn’t find the original backing video, but in that early scene, Cola is wearing the same outfit as Tracy. She’s even wearing a headband that says “Tracy” on it. And Tracy asks her, “Why are you wearing my outfit?” She replies, “Well, anybody can do what you’re doing.” Their exchange was a way to establish the band’s questioning of authority. Who’s the leader? And why? And what’s that about? When I was in high school, I used to think that if I were in a band we would all be soulmates. I was yearning for that kind of relationship and this was a way of confronting that desire. Confronting the reality that relationships and collaborations are imperfect.

It made me think about the conversation we had over skype about the solo artist/writer and the confessional tone, and how as a collaboration that was both politically compelling, and somehow impossible to imagine within our idea of the incoherent selves/elfs. And I was thinking about our 'movie' and if we could think about it as a kind of reverse of what Wynne was doing with Tracey and the Plastics. In terms of working as a group to look at the individualised confessional as a mode of address....

THOUGHTS.

The path between

Modernisms. Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas created lesbian representation at a time where there was none by self consciously taking photographs of each other doing every day things like sitting in chairs looking intellectual, and hanging out with dogs and Picasso. Some people say that, with the community of lesbians that surrounded them, Stein and Toklas created the first lesbian public space (the path between their house and a friend's lilac bookshop). I can't verify that because I saw it on an undocumented internet derive. You'll just have to trust me.

Spiral and beyond

'Spiral and beyond: Art and feminism in New Zealand' was a retrospective exhibition curated by Dr Judith Collard between 14 June - 10 August 2002. Here's a description in her words:

1975 was the United Nations International Women's Year. To mark the event, Allie Eagle, then Mitchell, curated a special show of ‘6 Women Artists'. It was held at the Robert McDougall Gallery in Christchurch. It was the first exhibition to be organized on feminist principles and focusing on ideas about identity. Eagle had belonged to a collective of women artists and writers based in Christchurch who then went on to found the influential journal Spiral, that published poems, essays and art. This network of women shared ideas, journals and books, including the writings of such theorists as Lucy Lippard and artists like the U.S artists Judy Chicago and Mary Beth Edelson, whose work is included in the exhibition.
Gradually these women made contact with others of like-mind around New Zealand and organized exhibitions and events such as the 1977 A Seasons Diaries, organized by Joanna Paul, which brought together both professional and non-professional artists, as well as those who had never been involved in art-making before. In 1977 the Women's Artists Group also organized the Women's Art Environment at the Canterbury Society of the Arts. In 1980 the Women's Gallery was founded in Wellington by a collective that included Marian Evans, Anna Keir, Bridie Lonie, Rosemary Johnson and others.
This exhibition is a sampler, providing but a taste of the variety of women artists who were inspired by feminism to shake up the attitudes of the New Zealand art world, who thought that the work of women was worth celebrating and who broadened the approved subject matter of art.

Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/hocken/exhibitions/otago039145.html 9 November 2015

Some images of works included in the exhibition:

 Allie Eagle This woman died, I care 1978 

watercolour, pastel and graphite, 720 x 540 mm 

Inscription: (l.r.) "Allie Eagle Feb'78"; "THIS WOMAN DIED, I CARE DIED TRYING TO ABORT HERSELF" 

Credit Line:Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1993 

Accession No:1993/19

(couldn't find a credit)

Sharon Alston 1986? photographer unknown (ahem! – maybe Adrienne Martyn?) – from A Women’s Picture Book: Twenty-Five Women Artists of Aotearoa New Zealand eds Evans, Lonie, Lloyd (1988)

Judith Collard has also written: 'Spiral Women: Locating Lesbian Activism in New Zealand Feminist Art', 1975-1992 in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 2006), pp. 292-320. Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629655

Might be worth a read, does anyone have access to Jstor??

Imogen Taylor's No Idea

Stolen.......... 

Skype notes 04 11 2015

Present LA, MS, RO
CN apologies

MS thanks Liz for recent run of excellent posts - RO seconds.

Liz accepts thanks and adds preface: thinking of these posts as encapsulating respect points for the project - respect points in the context and situation of AtCS making a public work in Christchurch/Manchester St.

We discuss the post homophobia-free-zones-kiss.html  - the 'Safe Zone' - touching on queer urbanism - is queerness often applied respectively to urban spaces? - retrospective logic? - thinking about how urban environments are specific, contemporary, an articulation of public/private space - provide opportunities for participation -

urbanism in fiction - interesting territory

Marnie references Douglas Crimp (great intersection of art history, theory and biography in his work).

Crimp discusses Gordon Matta-Clark in relation to urban space/emptiness and also Pier 52 - how Clark's work doesn't engage with or acknowledge the site as 'cruising zone'... thinking about what it means for queer bodies to be excluded i.e. from documentation of the art etc.

The below is excerpted from this essay by Crimp that covers Pier 52 and many other relevant musings: http://www.post-post.net/psychogeography/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/krimp_textonly.pdf

“An indoor park,” “joyous,” “dangerous,” “absurd,” “flirting with the abyss”: descriptions of Day’s End by Matta-Clark and others make it impossible for me not to think of the experiences of those other pier occupants, the ones from whom Matta-Clark seems in nearly all his statements about the work to want to differentiate himself—“you know, that whole S&M,” as he put it.18 Although in many instances Matta-Clark aligned his work with others who took over or otherwise made their mark on abandoned parts of cities, particularly workers, homeless people, and disenfranchised youth, in the case of Pier 52, Matta-Clark not only disavowed any bond with the gay men who were using the piers as cruising grounds but went so far as to lock them out:

After looking up and down the waterfront for a pier, I just happened on this one. And of all of them, it was the one that was least trafficked. It had been broken into and was continuing to be broken into when I was there. But it remained a kind of side step from their general haunt. So I went in and realized without very much effort I could secure it. And it then occurred to me that while I was closing up holes and barb-wiring various parts, I would also change the lock and have my own lock. It would make it so much easier.

Safe zone - recovery - experience, memory, light, people, public space - what the city of Christchurch might be trying to recover.

MS refers to LA's post 'Queer space' and the first quote around visibility/invisibility:

What is queer space? Aaron Betsky [author of the seemingly spurious textQueer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, 1997] has described queer space as “not built, only implied, and usually invisible,” and as “useless, amoral, and sensual space that lives only in and for experience.” 11 Can we envision a different kind of queer space — space that is more permanent, built and visible, even as we embrace the experiential and sensory?

Visibility in relation to rights - bureaucratic policy can make pathways for social movements that are inclusive
focus on generative/participation in public process
public opinion 
visibility - at the level of representation - and - being able to effect and influence structural decision-making

MS - lets also consider abstraction in relation to 'in/visibility' 

triangles - symbolism
black triangle signals alt/radical women 

--

Making a film in a place that might not exist anymore - or soon won't exist - perfect termporary film 'set'

Posters - how interested are we - QUITE

Why?

Posters are provisional
take on the surface they're applied to
we can go for suites
repetition
zones of quietness and activity
windy parts
'straightness of the street'
Posters can have a funny public service function - stamp out homophobia (Kanye West says so) to Women's Weekly covers signed by gay hands...

Christchurch - MS last visit - the city seemed like a toothless mouth = becomes more and more residential the further out you go - roads but little traffic
the old ebb and flow of activity curtailed
Street that is built for a certain kind of activity that not longer takes place there

Flags?
Too close to the flag debate

Performance?
Keep in mind - an invitational aspect

Christchurch artists and queer activists 
Being part of the conversation - current and past generations
The ramifications of speaking of 'now' and a 'now' that's dominated by projections or uncertainties of the future - memory/amnesia

Punkfest - diy ethos and humour

Aesthetic conversations - image shower - images that are part of national/local vocabulary/collective memory - Liz's image shower - parker hulme image

Individual biographical assertions meet a four-person collaborative approach

Psycho-geography is interesting
Safe/Not safe spaces in relation to individual experience/memory
In a post-internet context this heads into navigating social media/chat rooms/cuber bullying
Diaristic - feminist - exposure method - 'opinion' that's thoughtfully contextualised

Psycho-geography can be limiting
Confessional mode can be powerful but also lonely

AtCS are often interested in abstraction outside of a drive for re/coherence within a single identity - we want to challenge and provoke understandings of who/what embodies enacts 'queer experience'

Un-broach-able relativity doesn't go far enough for us
be aware of the colonisation of isolation - the way isolation can be used to restrict and colonise thought and action
permit ourselves to form a connection/adopt a love or love of languages not our own
to break that isolation

Media

Women's Weekly
Press headlines 'man with axe arrested in hamilton' - images that play into national psyche - i.e. did we all picture a similar axe-man due to our familiarity with 'surreal/violent/masculine' imagery like that which proliferated in 70s/80s film...?

Art History in Christchurch

Canterbury regionalists
Party scene
Scenic grandeur
Settlement
Abstraction of landscape
in global tourism terms - the regional stands out

1977 Women's artist group / society exhibition - open exclusively to women in the first five days

Action plan - Clare input requested xxx

- Clare, what are your thoughts on heading in the direction of posters?

- Once we have a good sense of direction regarding the likely  'form' of project, update Mel to give heads up around materials/funding etc

- Continue to post and comment on blog

- Add and define Respect Points of project, including deepening/widening research

- RO to Christchurch on an AtCS research 'away-research-happy-time-site visit'? Clare what do you think? Keen to hear your thoughts on how we can best use this 'person in the field' opportunity? 

-  Discuss with Mel possibility of RO visiting ChCh for research purposes and confirm any funds available from budget for site visit

- RO to follow up with LAGANZ about access to lgbt archive materials relevant to this project

- Set our next skype time for when Clare is back home 

Skype notes transcribed with liberal margins of error of rainbow% by [RO]

This one is for Clare

Manchester street, voguing catwalk?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNEbccdKNDo

past choirs with great repertoire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uc342EsMSo

Sunday/Monday movie night

Checkout the selection of LGBT full length and short films from NZ on Screen: http://www.nzonscreen.com/explore/lgbt

And for an alternative history of NZ cinema
http://video.lumiere.net.nz/out-of-the-mist/

xxxx

LOL

stunt casting

noun [ mass noun ] informal

the practice of casting a famous actor or other celebrity in a small role in order to publicize or promote a television programme, film, or play. stunts aside, there's a bit of stunt casting in the picture that has also attracted attention.

Temporality and mapping time, tracing continuity

North Project's latest: Community Service: A Reading Room
Heello Virginia

four maps one river

Left to Right:

• Places Of Significance for Ngai Tahu, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (2012). Central City Recovery Plan. Christchurch: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, p 12.
• Black Map 273: Christchurch's street grid as laid out by Edward Jollie in 1850. Courtesy of Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga Christchurch Office. Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (2012). Central City Recovery Plan. Christchurch: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, p 14. 
• Google Maps, 4 November 2015
• The Blueprint Plan: Te Hononga Mokowā, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (2012). Central City Recovery Plan. Christchurch: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, p 34.

Two things

Keir Leslie on SCAPE 8 Public Art Christchurch Biennial http://pantograph-punch.com/post/ruining-the-fun

"Several commentators have claimed that this moment in Christchurch’s history is a particularly friendly one for public art. Charlie Gates talks in the Press about “a quiet public art renaissance", while Warren Feeney writes that, post-quake, “the message has finally got through about the value of the arts to a city that, historically, has frequently been hostile.” Unfortunately, these Panglossian pronouncements are at odds with the evidence from this year’s Scape. New Intimacies is marked by a collection of banal and shallow works, interspersed with a few more daring attempts to spark something more interesting."

---

Inside Out - We All Belong from Inside Out on Vimeo.

"The crowd are here for the launch of Inside Out -  a collaboration between Rainbow Youth, Curative, Core Education and Auckland University - to create a set of educational resources targeted towards school students. They aim to challenge norm-based thinking and reduce the amount of homophobia and transphobia in schools." http://tearaway.co.nz/these-videos-will-turn-learning-about-sexuality-inside-out/

Mammarian Mother Manchester etymology, or: who said breast?

Manchester, Northwest England.

The name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunium. These are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name, either from mamm- ("breast", in reference to a "breast-like hill") or from mamma ("mother", in reference to a local river goddess).  

Both meanings are preserved in languages derived from Common Brittonic, mam meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh.[13] The suffix -chester is a survival of Old English ceaster ("fort; fortified town").[14]

(Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester)

Outing

So it turns out that Truth newspaper (a conservative NZ tabloid) outed Marilyn Waring on August 24, 1976 with the cover headline of:

"Marilyn Waring, National Member of Parliament for Raglan, is a lesbian. Her lover is a former Hamilton housewife and mother of three, who left her husband and children about three months ago to share a Wellington love nest."

(See: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/8825398/The-Truth-was-out-there).

I can't find the actual cover, but here is what their general layout looked like in the 2000s:

Some queer pos(t)ers

Eve Fowler

Emily Roysdon

OK, not a poster, but she's a triangle (sun dial) in public space......

David McDiarmid:

Points of contact (site visit?), a working list

There are some listings of local Christchurch LGBTQI organisations here:
http://www.gaynz.com/community/gay-chc.php

In particular:
http://womenscentre.co.nz/
http://womenscentre.co.nz/lesbian-events

And:
http://www.agender.org.nz/4322/246922.html
http://www.agender.org.nz/4322/index.html

xxxxxxxx

From handkerchief code to representational fomo

The handkerchief code (also known as the hanky code, the bandana code, and flagging^[1]) is a color-coded system, employed usually among the gay male casual-sex seekers or BDSM practitioners in the United States, Canada, and Europe, to indicate preferred sexual fetishes, what kind of sex they are seeking, and whether they are a top/dominant or bottom/submissive. The hanky code was widely used in the 1970s by gay and bisexual men, and grew from there to include all genders and orientations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code

---

Symbol/abstract representational code
A flirtation
individual preference and desire for connection with other/s through a recognition of/reading by way of shared language.

---

Visible/Invisible
Ungrammatical

The sentence and the young man

A sentence lies exposed to public view, in an open trash can. It is the ungrammatical sentence "Who Sing!?!" We are watching it from where we stand concealed in a shadow archway. We see a young man walk past the trash can several times, eyeing the sentence curiously. We will stay where we are, for fear that, at any moment, he will reach in quickly and fix it.

                                                                                                                                     Dream

By Lydia Davis in Can't and Won't

---

Visible/Invisible
Repetition
Fluctuations of fomo


What is required in order for us to read, understand and participate in the subtext?

----

Just because something is visible doesn't mean it's predictable

I love you = I hate you = the monkey was allergic to bananas

The road not taken = fomo =

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

punk band lead singer = our drummer hates punk and we suck = can we play in your bar?


---

The symbolic pocket (a blast from the past):

Page 3 of our work for Hue & Cry Journal 5, 2011

---

Representational fomo

he he... her her... er eh... !?!

Ōtautahi manawhenua

Some facts from the (61 page!) Christchurch Central Recovery Plan

Te Mahere ‘Maraka Ōtautahi’ 

"A variety of elements influence greater Christchurch, its form and culture, uses of the land and the people that call it home. This section provides an overview of the people of Christchurch and the history of the area.

Tāhuhu kōrero/ historic background
The Ngāi Tahu migration to Canterbury was led by the hapū, Ngāi Tuhaitara and the sons of Tū-āhu-riri, Taane-Tiki, Moki and Tūrakautahi. The waka (canoe) that brought them to the region was the Makawhiua, whose captain was the rangatira (chief), Maka. Once Ngāi Tuhaitara had established Kaiapoi Pā as their principal fort, the leading chiefs such as Maka, Huikai, Turakipō, Te Ake, Hika-tutae, Te Raki whakaputa, Whakuku, Makō and Te Ruahikihiki established the mana (authority) of Ngāi Tuhaitara to the land by occupation and intermarriage. 

Image credit: Scene on the Horotueka or Cam/Kaiapoi Pah/Canterbury, 1855, Watercolour on paper 

- Charles Haubroe watercolour, Canterbury Museum

While Ōtautahi was formerly the name of a specific site in central Christchurch, it was adopted by Mr Te Ari Taua Pitama of Ngāi Tūāhuriri as the general name for Christchurch in the 1930s. Before this, Ngāi Tahu generally referred to the Christchurch area by suburb: Pū-taringamotu (Riccarton), Ōpawa, Puāri (Central Christchurch West), Ōtautahi (Central Christchurch East) and Te Kai-a-Te- Karoro (New Brighton). ‘Karaitiana’, a Māori transliteration of the English word ‘Christian’ or ‘Christianity’ was also a name used by Ngāi Tahu to refer to the whole of Christchurch City. 

From these places of occupation, connections were traced to other mahinga kai resources and settlements across Christchurch, Banks Peninsula and Canterbury. The Ngāi Tahu group which holds the traditional relationships with Central Christchurch are the whānau and hapū of Ngāi Tūāhuriri based at Tuahiwi marae in North Canterbury. Ngāi Tūāhuriri are acknowledged as holding manawhenua (traditional authority) over this area of the city." 

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (2012). Central City Recovery Plan. Christchurch: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. Page 11. 

And from the Christchurch Public Library website (who clearly have more page space so thankfully can include the wildlife!):  

"Te Potiki Tautahi was one of the original Ngāi Tahu people to settle in the Canterbury region. His settlement was at Koukourarata (Port Levy) on Horomaka (Banks Peninsula). At that time, the swampy flatlands of the present day site of Christchurch city were abundant with food such as ducks, weka, eels and small fish. 

Tautahi and his people made frequent forays from Koukourarata around the Peninsula and then up the Ōtākaro (Avon River) to gather kai. They camped on the river banks as they caught eels and snared birds in the harakeke. Tautahi died during one of these visits and is buried in the urupā on the site of what was St Luke’s Church vicarage on the corner of Kilmore and Manchester Streets (demolished following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes). 

The area now defined as Christchurch city was named as Tautahi’s special territory. The full name is Te Whenua o Te Potiki-Tautahi, this was later shortened to Ō Te Potiki Tautahi and then shortened further to the name we have today, Ōtautahi."

Retrieved from http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/ti-kouka-whenua/otautahi/ 4 November 2015

Canterbury Regionalists, in search of identity

Rata Lovell-Smith, Hawkins, 1933
Oil on canvas board, 345 x 460mm
Collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased, 1981

Rita Angus, Cass,  1936

oil on canvas on board, 370 x 460 mm

Collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1955

Whilst in Christchurch I visited the Art Gallery to see some of the works that constitute New Zealand Regionalism, which focused on depicting the landscape of Canterbury and Otago in a realist manner. Typically the Regionalists (eg., Rita Angus, and Rata Lovell-Smith) were pre-modernist and opposed to the modernist shift to European abstraction and to American abstract expressionism. 

The regionalists depicted the landscape without people, using buildings as the stand-in for the signs of human inhabitation. An example is WA Sutton, a Christchurch-based painter who taught at the very conservative University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. This art school in the 1950s was resolutely committed to representational painting and encouraged accurate drawing rather than experimentation. 

The Canterbury regionalists rejected the romantic traditions of scenic grandeur (including the sublime) and they developed a distinctive imagery focused on marks of settlement and physical features that typified the region. 

Rata's representation of the Canterbury landscape in paintings such as 'Hawkins' (1933) and 'Bridge, Mt Cook Road' (1934) influenced later artists, including Rita Angus and William Sutton. This regionalism showed an interest in subjects that were characteristic of the localities with which the painters were most familiar. The Canterbury School was a regionalist movement which expressed a growing awareness of a local identity and harboured aspirations for a distinctive New Zealand art. 

Today, its the regional difference that stands out in a globalised world and international tourism. 

Excerpted from the opinionated art/photography blog junkforcode by Gary Sauer Thompson in 'NZ Realism / Regionalism,' April 9 2009, http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/2009/04/, accessed 3 November 2009. Check out the other posts on Peter Peryer's bloated cow and Anne Shelton's Doublet (I could not bring myself to make another Parker Hulme post!!). 

And from the more historically accurate NZHistory's 'History of New Zealand Painting: Regionalism':

In the 1930s and 1940s a distinctly New Zealand style of painting began to emerge. At this time there was an increasing demand by critics like James Shelley (1884–1961) and A.R.D. Fairburn (1904–57) for painters to pay greater attention to local subjects. What developed was a New Zealand style of regionalism that is characterised by a preoccupation with place and local identity. The centre of regionalist painting in this country was Christchurch, with pupils and teachers at the Canterbury College School of Art the main exponents. 

[...]

Regionalism in New Zealand was not such a formal doctrine. Artists tended to approach the landscape with a diversity of styles and a range of interests. They dealt with themes of isolation and loneliness, and celebrated rural life and the virtues of honest work. Another aspect often remarked upon in these works is the crisp, clearly defined forms and stark contrast between light and dark. This is attributed to an artist’s response to the harsh qualities of the New Zealand light as championed by Christopher Perkins. 

The regionalist style can be characterised by a number of features: flattened forms, strong outlines, broad areas of flat colour, and a decorative treatment of form and space. The depiction of unpopulated landscapes with motifs to signify settlement is also typical of this period.

'A new New Zealand art', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/nz-painting-history/a-new-new-zealand-art, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 20-Dec-2012. Accessed 3 November 2015.