Fika is a collective of Christchurch Pasifika creatives whose members meet to give energy to the practice of storytelling through writing, poetry, prose and performance. Through collaboration and exchange, Fika maintain a sense of oral tradition and work to strengthen the voices of Pasifika peoples within Canterbury.

FIKA at CoCA

From June 16 to August, members of Fika will meet once a week in the gallery space provided by CoCA. Responding to exhibitions within the gallery and conducting a free writing exercise, the group will post their work to gallery wall. The writing will be a mixture of edited and unedited work, produced on and off site.

Free writing exercise
Amelia Hitchcock, Curator

I was lucky enough to be invited to join Fika for their first session of Free Writing at CoCA. We set up a couple of tables, and then all started with the same sentence ‘oblique tales from the aquatic sublime’ which we borrowed from Vertigo Sea.  The aim of the exercise is to write without editing; a stream of consciousness, for three pages, or however long you can stand it! If you get stuck, you repeat the last word or last line until the flow comes back. 

We each wrote a few pages, then read from what we’d written to the group. It was quite incredible how many different tangents we’d gone on from the one starting sentence. Following this, we split into pairs and gave over our text to our partner, who took to it with a craft knife, extracting sentences or sections that got to the core of what we’d written. 

Working collaboratively, we arranged the cutouts into poems, taking content from both partners initial texts. These are now displayed on the gallery wall. 

I’m looking forward to watching new texts appear on the wall each weekend. Toward the end of Vertigo Sea, FIKA members will choose the best works to be performed at an event - watch this space. 

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FIKA are the first community group to respond to the provocation below and activate the North Gallery 

At the opening of the Vertigo Sea, The North Gallery appears empty except for some vertebrae from the Canterbury Museum’s Blue Whale skeleton. This emptiness is deliberate.

Space is a premium in Otautahi, particularly in the CBD. So as CoCA re-establishes itself, we are opening thegallery up as a platform and resource. The emptiness is potential. It is an invitation.

CoCA is currently working with community groups who may come and utilise the space over the course of the exhibition. These groups range from artist collaboratives, education groups to NGOs. As the season unfolds, this space may host pop up exhibitions, spoken word performances, workshops, meetings and screenings. We may accumulate documentation from some of these, and the space may shift and change as community needs become apparent.

We will also use this space for discussions, for visiting groups to assemble and workshop, for children’s activities, and talks.

The concept of curating and directing CoCA has now become a reality. I have said my farewell to Plymouth in the UK and flown across the globe and landed in Christchurch. I am now well into my second week of work on New Zealand soil.

On route to Christchurch I was fortunate to experience the Venice Biennale. Located in a sensational, historic setting, this is the largest of the world’s biannual contemporary art events. Okwui Enwezor is the renowned curator of the main exhibition All the World’s Futures. On for another five months, the exhibition is essentially about the state of the world today and how artists are reacting to and making sense of global issues. The exhibition is spread across two sites: the Arsenale, a beautiful former rope and ship building yard; and the well-maintained Giardini (gardens), surrounded by 29 pavilions built from 1907 onwards by the various nations participating in this enduring Biennale. There is also a surprisingly extensive collateral programme of creative projects and exhibitions around the city.

Experiencing so much artwork in one place left me with many highlights and potential resonances for CoCA. The pavilions give you a sense of global contemporary art, some of the works clearly defining the state of artists’ respective countries.

Artist Simon Denny, who is representing New Zealand, was extremely well received. His project Secret Power was partly prompted by the impact of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks of National Security Agency (NSA) PowerPoint slides which outlined top-secret US telecommunications surveillance programmes. These slides highlighted New Zealand’s role in US intelligence work, as a member of the US-led ‘Five Eyes’ alliance. Now out in the open, the slides have come to represent international surveillance work and its impact on individual privacy. Denny’s ‘Biennale Arte 2015’ project has gained lots of international press and put New Zealand in the spotlight in the ‘art world’.

For me, Chinese artist Xu Bing’s Phoenix (above) most powerfully aligned with the curator’s concept for the Venice Biennale. Throughout China’s history, every dynasty has had its form of phoenixes. Representing luck, unity, power and prosperity, these mythological birds have, for the most part, been benevolent, gentle creatures. The pair in this exhibition, made out of materials used for China’s commercial development, reflects the grimmer and grittier face of China today. Essentially, the phoenix expresses unrealised hopes and dreams.

An opportunity that I hope to bring to CoCA from Venice is a fantastic work by British/Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah. I have worked with Akomfrah and the production team Smoking Dogs over the last few years, resulting in commissioned work. Akomfrah is a polemic artist, and working with him has definitely impacted on my thinking as a curator.

Akomfrah’s presentation Vertigo Sea is on display in the Biennale’s Central Pavilion. It is a new three-screen/channel film installation about whaling, the environment and our relationship with the sea. For the last 30 years, spanning cinema, television and gallery-based installations, Akomfrah’s work has engaged with questions of memory and identity, creating moving-image works, which give a voice to African migration in Europe. He fills gaps in history using archival material to create documentary-style ‘film essays’ and speculative fictional stories about our past. He is renowned for pushing the boundaries of documentary film.

During my quick four days in Venice, I enjoyed making new connections and developing existing relationships, both with the art and with the people. I am looking forward to applying this learning to CoCA’s projects here in Christchurch.

I am a firm believer that to make knowledge and skills relevant to a location you have to first experience the place. I’m really looking forward to experiencing and learning about the city so I can get a sense of how CoCA can once again become a key focal point and resource for the public and local art communities. I am extremely excited to be here!

Kia ora koutou.

Paula Orrell
Director & Principal Curator, CoCA

Image: Xu Bing’s Phoenix (2015) hanging between two boathouses at the Arsenale. 

‘CoCA – Centre of Contemporary Art. Re-opening in Spring 2015’…That got my attention…‘Calling for volunteers’...Interesting, tell me more. ‘Sharing stimulating art experiences that engage people in conversations about contemporary life and culture’. OK. You’ve got me. I’m in!

The notion of ‘public art gallery’ is almost foreign in Christchurch after the quakes that rocked our institutions to their very foundations. Thankfully, over the last four years, the damage has stimulated creative innovation.

Exciting work has been done outside ‘the gallery’, in makeshift venues and al fresco settings throughout the city. Artists have expanded their DIY skills into event organising – grouping and promoting themselves as artists and art organisations.

Christchurch is now ready for a gallery that is devoted to its city, our diverse communities and contemporary artists here and abroad. It is exciting that CoCA will be re-born as a place to share ideas and engage people in contemporary art and creative projects.

My experience of CoCA is as an artist, exhibiting in the 2003 CoCA Contemporary Art Awards. I was in my third year of my Fine Arts degree at the University of Canterbury. And I was green. I had no idea what to expect yet I was impressed with how genuine and knowledgeable the gallery staff were and how popular this group show was. I fell in love with the space. I loved the echo of footsteps and chatter within the expansive ceilings; the way the gaudy pale lino squeaked underfoot; and the smell of freshly white painted walls, offset by the musty tinge of a 1960s building. It was the perfect introduction to showing artwork in a gallery setting. The experience helped me begin my fledgling career as an artist and excite me about future exhibitions.

I have such fond memories of CoCA – the architecture, the artists, the people behind the scenes – and of course at the heart of the gallery: the art. So to hear that the Centre of Contemporary Art is re-opening again this coming Spring really made me smile.

Welcome back CoCA. I’ve missed you.

Alanah Tocker
Artist and volunteer staff member of CoCA

This weeks blog is inspired by London based artist Dryden Goodwin. Dryden is a British artist whose works often encompass intricate drawings in combination with photography and live action video. He creates films, gallery installations, projects in public space, etchings, works on-line and soundtracks. His works practise reflects of the ethical dimensions of looking at the world and beyond. Dryden’s work Breathe is currently being showcased in our exhibition Precarious Nature here at Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art .

Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe is an animation of over 1,300 pencil drawings of his five year old son, inhaling and exhaling. The boy progresses through fluctuating breathing patterns, at some moments regular, and at others more laboured as he stares out from the frame. Through emphasising the physicality of the act of breathing it the work draws attention to the vulnerability of children, whose developing respiratory systems are is most at risk from pollution, and who will live with the long term physical and environmental effects of our current lifestyles.

This work is taking a critical stance on air pollution and air quality, particularly in London, but it also has significance for us here in Ōtautahi. London, a much larger and condensed city, is the one of the most polluted cities in Europe, with it costing the population approximately £2 billion annually. The air pollution in London is so uncontrollable that it has been shown to cause more premature deaths than both smoking and traffic incidents combined. 

The guideline for pm10 in Ōtautahi had been exceeded an average of thirty times a last year, whilst the carbon monoxide guideline is often exceeded ten times a year. Similarly to Christchurch, London has consistently exceeded its yearly limits of PM10 emissions and nitrogen dioxide. An article released 6 days into 2017 reported that London has already breached its annual air pollution limit for the year, which highlights how toxic the air pollution is in the highly condensed city. 

Image Source:  Putney High Street on 3 January 2017

Air pollution in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) is the worst in Aotearoa New Zealand, with majority of it coming from domestic use of wood and coal burning for heating. The impacts of air pollution are not only damaging on the environment, but also people’s well-being and health - in particular, children. Clean air is made up of approximately 78% Nitrogen, 20% Oxygen, .9% Argon and .03% carbon dioxide. When the air is polluted, the levels of toxins increase, which increase the likelihood of morbidity and mortality. Pm10, also known as particulate matter, is a particle that comes in a variety of sizes and has the ability to travel deep into your lung. People in areas less socioeconomically advantaged are more likely to live next to hazardous sites in comparison to those in areas that are socioeconomically advantaged - this is often referred to as environmental racism.

Environmental racism is a type of discrimination that is closely tied to residential segregation, where people who are of low-income or minority communities are more likely to live or be forced to live in areas that are in close proximity to hazardous sites and toxic waste due to race, class and gender. These areas have much higher levels of air pollution, with people, particularly children having ongoing health implications because of it. As mentioned, children and infants are much more vulnerable to the risks of morbidity due to air pollution. The effects that high levels of air pollution can have on children are often long lasting, and can decrease the quality and length of a persons life. The risks associated with air pollution include the increased likelihood of strokes, asthma, cancer, wheezing, bronchitis, reduced lung development, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and heart attacks.

Above is a map highlighting the geographic distribution of PM2.5 air pollution levels at a global scale. The full sized interactive map can be found here where you can zoom into countries or cities you are curious about. It also allows you to see where the dirtiest power plants are situated. Along with this, it gives you a more in depth explanation of what Particular Matter is (PM) and the harmful effects it can have on peoples health and wellbeing. 

Some Ōtautahi Christchurch based not-for-profit organizations we are working with include 350.org and Generation Zero. 350 Christchurch are a local group of volunteers committed to taking action on climate change. Generation Zero is a nationwide movement of young New Zealanders working together to get our country on the path towards a zero carbon future.

350.org focuses on the wider social and economic changes we now urgently need to tackle climate disruption. They are a global grassroots climate movement that can hold our leaders accountable to the realities of science and the principles of justice. Their core goals include hitting the 90% renewable energy by 2025, cute green house emissions, improve insulation levels and many others. Generation Zero is a nationwide movement of young New Zealanders working together to get our country on the path towards a zero carbon future. They campaign for smarter transport and urban planning, and independence from fossil fuels. Both organizations have a central goal of New Zealand becoming less or completely independent from fossil fuels as it is a major factor in carbon emissions and our high levels of air pollution. You can support them by going to their website and signing petitions, donating or volunteering