Bird talk: artist’s statement for my show at Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch, NZ. 18 November - 6 December 2008
In Christchurch recently I spotted two plover as they mistook a heap of concrete in Lichfield Street behind NG Gallery for a braided river and nested by the Wilson’s temporary car park. Walking to my studio one day I saw two chicks, the next day there was one and, soon after, long before the remaining chick could fly, the parents were gone. My friend Ramonda responded to these observations and wrote the following poem.
Bird talk
In the cities crowded space
it’s like a zoo or continual race
to nest on a building block
no protection from tree or rock
with predators arriving at the family nest
you know the young birds’ dismal fate
it licked its lips
and ate and ate
Ramonda te Maiharoa
In 2000, fresh back from 10 months living in London, I started collecting Sovereign timber brick-a-brac: rulers, trays with painted and poker worked birds, brushes, cheese boards, napkin rings, 21st birthday keys and jewellery boxes. Then, I could pick up the pieces for a few bucks and for me they felt like icons of cultural identity. These timber souvenirs evoke what is special about being here; miro, kahikatea, kauri, kaikawaka, rewarewa, tawa, pukatea, totara, matai, tanekaha and rimu. The native timbers inlaid in these domestic objects remind that in their milling the birds have lost their homes; huia, kokako, piopio, hihi, kaka, kakapo, ruru, weka and tieke.
In 2004 I went in search of the living birds and trees evoked by these souvenirs. I journeyed from Auckland, where I was then living, to Ulva Island, a predator free bird sanctuary at the bottom of the South Island. I filmed rare birds and juxtaposed them with a MacDonald’s drive-in. The collaged birthday papers in my painting Requiem for the birds (2004) also evoke the process of colonisation that has displaced the birds.
In the South Island the kokako is no more. Instead of hundreds of kaha recorded flying we are lucky to see half a dozen. There are now no tui in Christchurch. Today in the city the morepork does not cry outside the bathroom window - there are no takahe at the backdoor. You have to go to a predator free bird sanctuary to see the few survivors who are kept alive by intensive human intervention hence the reference to nature on dialysis in the title of one of my works.
The common birds such as the Tarapunga or black-billed gull are threatened. A black-billed bird count in Southland in 1974 found 85,000 breeding pairs, but last year that number had dropped to 4,000 pairs. Increasing river water takes for irrigation and unfenced rivers and cows are endangering our remaining birds. This year in the Mackenzie Country I saw a banded dotterel screaming to distract a beef cow advancing on its nest.
Hopscotch started out as a game played by Roman soldiers to hone their battle skills. It seems to me that we are playing hopscotch with the planet. Try imagining a world without polar bears, bumblebees, frogs, elephants and birds.
Jane Zusters
17 November 2008

