waiheke bach movie

win a river trip children's art competition

Children’s 2D Art Competition 2009


Winners get to take their family on a Waimakariri River jetboat ride sponsored by Alpine jets.
he awa reo - river talk:
art celebrating our rivers
COCA Gallery 25th November – 12th December
Canterbury schoolchildren are invited to produce an artwork about the Waimakariri and Rakaia Rivers. This is a water awareness project. Entries are welcome from a personal experience or any other viewpoint. The winning entries will be exhibited at Coca Gallery as part of the he awa reo – rivertalk exhibition along with the art of the adult artists;

Mark Adams, Nigel Brown, Linda James, Sam Mahon, Albi McCathy,
Ramonda Te Maiharoa, Becky Turrell, Irene Schroder, Ben Woollcombe, Margaret Ryley, Sally Hope and Jane Zusters . The aim of this exhibition is to share the art that was made as a result of these artists river journey earlier this year.

“Our latest project is to draw attention to the Central Plains Water scheme and how it will affect our rivers. Environment Canterbury has announced The Waianiwaniwa Valley will now not be dammed. However The Central Plains Water application is proceeding” says Jane Zusters

Prizes

Three students in total will be selected as competition winners - one from each of the three competition age group categories. Each winner will receive One FREE hour long trip for their family, on a Waimakariri River journey, sponsored by Alpine Jets (adult fare usually $105, child fare $75). Times and dates will be subject to availability. All winners and their families will need to travel at the same time and date.

Winning students are also invited to attend the exhibition opening on the 24th November 5:30 – 7:00pm at COCA Gallery. They will be able to view their framed winning entries (sponsored by Ronald Mottram Framers) alongside the work of the adult artists. All other competition entries submitted will be available in folders for the viewing enjoyment of everyone as well.

Entry Requirements
• Students entering must be between the ages 7 and 13 years and live in the Canterbury region. Entries will be judged in the following categories:
Age 7-9
Age 10-11
Age 12-13
• All entries must be submitted on A3 paper
• Entries can be completed in one or more of the following media: coloured pencil, felts, paint, collage or mixed media
• entry details must be completed clearly and fixed to the back of the work

• Entries should be addressed and sent to:

he awa reo – river talk,
C/O Coca Gallery,
66 Gloucester street or C/- P O Box 772,
Christchurch

Entry deadline dates/Information

• All works to arrive at COCA by 7th of November 2009 4:00pm and be collected from the gallery on Saturday 19th December 1-4pm
• Works submitted will be judged by Jane Zusters, Sally Hope and Diana, Lady Isaacs of the Waterrights Trust

Entry details

Please complete the following information on the back of the entry :


Age group of entrant
7-9
10-11
12-13
Contact Details of entrant
First Name:
Surname:
Postal Address:
Tel number:
Student E-mail address:

wall talking exhibition Tmaru Aigantighe Art Gallery 4 september

wall talking - walk up to a wall quite cautiously because some walls are very shy - politely introduce yourself and start talking to it as if it were listening to you

Painting: 'our rivers our lives', photo by Natasha Martin Timaru Herald


Its a nor'westa day in Christchurch. At last the first official day of spring after a cold wet winter. The first asparagus spears are up in my garden and I have been planting potatoes and strawberries. On friday I am driving to Timaru where thanks to Dr Fiona Ciaran, director of the Aigantighe Gallery "wall talking' is having a new incarnation 4 Sepember to 11 October. If you are heading south drop in to The Aigantighe Gallery, 49 Wai-iti Rd, Timaru. Same title and some of the works from the first exhibition at Quiqcorp earlier this year but Dr Fiona Ciaran has selected a completely new show with a focus on endangered birds and our threatened South Island rivers. It also features the largest painting I have done since 'Italian Journey' in 1985. 'our rivers our lives' is a 6 metre long canvas where the birds have been reduced to ghostly white blanks. The Mackenzie Country water hearings are about to begin and so you should come South to my exhibition and visit at the same time,this iconic landscape under threat of turning green through central pivot irrigators and dairy conversions.
wall talking is opening at the Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru on friday 4th September, 2009. Mike Armstrong is the guest speaker at the opening and Terry Johnstone will be launching his Mystery exhibition.
Aigantighe is pronounced 'egg and tie' and in Scottish Gaelic means 'at home'.This exhibition will run until 11th October.
Contact Details:
Aigantighe Art Gallery
49 Wai-iti Road,
Timaru.
Phone 03 688 4424
Fax 03 684-8346
gallery@timdc.govt.nz



This exhibition of Jane Zusters' paintings and photography was first shown 31 May to 26 June 2009
at Quiqcorp ART SPACE 155 High Street, Christchurch, NZ phone 0064 03 3417692

Rivertalk : Stop the Coalgate Dam

Central Plains Water wants to consruct a dam at Coalgate in Canterbury, New Zealand ,flood the Waianiwaniwa Valley and divert water from the Waimakariri and Rakaia rivers to irrigate marginal farmi...

opening Mark Hutchins Gallery Wellington,24 february 2009

Rivertalk exhibition/coming up

Media release – January 26, 2009

Christchurch artists to stage art protest campaign to save Canterbury’s Waianiwaniwa Valley and Rakaia and Waimakariri Rivers

Two Christchurch artists deeply concerned about the future of Canterbury’s water will launch their Canterbury River-talk project in March, they said today.

Artist friends Sally Hope and Jane Zusters want to draw attention to the Central Plains water and land grab scheme.

Last year the pair co-foundered a network of New Zealand artists named Artists to Save Our Water which instigates art projects about local and regional water issues.

A group of artists will camp at Kowai Bush at the site where the braided Waimakariri River will turn into a concrete canal if the Central Plains water scheme goes ahead.

An exquisite valley of lush rolling hills and mature trees planted by generations of Deans will be submerged by a 55 metre dam if the scheme is approved.

The artists involved are Mark Adams, Nigel Brown, Linda James, Sam Mahon, Albi McCathy, Ramonda Te Maiharoa, Tiffany Thornley, Becky Turrell and also Hope and Zusters.

``We are camping from March 20 to 23 where the Waimakariri River leaves the Gorge and the braided section of the river begins,’’ Zusters and Hope said.

``This is the location of the Upper Intake and canal for the proposed Central Plains scheme. We will be organising a tour of the surrounding area that would be affected if this scheme goes ahead.

``Artists will be able to see, feel, touch, collect, sketch, photograph, film, write, process and draw their experiences to use as the basis for a water art exhibition we are planning for later in the year. There will be no decision on Central Plains Water before May and so this is perfect timing for publicity purposes to protect and celebrate the river through their artwork,’’ they said.

Ends

Media advisory: for further information, comment, photos or interviews please contact Sally Hope on 03 355 2076 or Jane Zusters on 03 389 3509 or Kip Brook at Word of Mouth Media NZ on 0275 033 855

Rivertalk Exhibition: Coca Gallery Christchurch

24 november to 12 december 2009


Rivertalk is part two of a project by a group of artists to celebrate through their art making the Waimakariri River in the vicinity of the Malvern Hills. This is the site for the proposed Coalgate Dam if the Central Plains Water scheme is approved. An exquisite landscape of lush rolling hills and mature trees planted by generations of Deans will be submerged by a 55 metre dam while the Waimakariri becomes a concrete canal instead of a braided river. One of the central issues of our time is that ecological uneasy edge where natural worlds are threatened when human beings channel the whole eco system into themselves.

From Friday 20th March to Monday 23rd March 2009 the artists will camp at Kowai bush. This is where the Waimakariri River leaves the Gorge and the braided section of the river begins. This is the location of the Upper Intake and canal for the proposed Central Plains Water Scheme. The artists will travel on a voyage of inspiration/visual research by jet boat along the banks of the Waimakariri capturing the ever changing mood of the water and the plains surrounding it. They will also have bus a trip escorted by a spokesperson from the Malvern Hills protection society and have the opportunity to see some of the magnificent homesteads and historic sites that are threatened. One of these sites is one of the most significant areas of mudfish in Canterbury. The artists will see, feel, touch, collect, sketch, photograph, film, write, process and draw their experiences to use as the basis for future art making for an exhibition that Sally Hope and Jane Zusters are in the process of organising.

The following artists are participating in Rivertalk; Mark Adams, Nigel Brown, Sally Hope, Linda James, Sam Mahon, Albi McCathy, Ramonda Te Maiharoa, Tiffany Thornley, Becky Turrell, Jane Zusters. These are nationally known New Zealand artists with proven track records and the results of their research will result in a significant body of work about this threatened, iconic landscape. As artists we want to protect and celebrate this landscape through our art making.

For more information please contact;

Jane Zusters ph 3893509 Sally Hope 355 2076

This is a project by a network of New Zealand artists that we co founded called ”Artists for save our Water” which instigates art projects that draw attention to local water issues.

Birdtalk : Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch. 2008

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