I’ve spent the last two weeks helping to pack up the permanent collection at the CSA CoCa Art Gallery after the February earthquake. Over the two-week period I packed hundreds of art works, preparing them for shipping. Because of the shortage of packing supplies, we were forced to work with what we had, making boxes out of roles of card and offcuts of bubble wrap. I began to draw from this environment, developing an idea based around the concept of packaging, I began to see the wrapped works as an art form in there own right and not just a hastened attempt to ready works for storage.
I don’t particularly want my work to be earthquake related but I think it’s impossible to make art in Christchurch and not in some way be in response to the 2011 disaster. Whether it be the materials we use or the ideas we draw from.
I took some photographs of my flat mate wrapping a cup. I wasn’t so much interested in what he was wrapping more in the way that he went about it. I’ve always been interested in the in between moments of photography, the ability to document what happens before and after the end product. I thought by documenting a task such as wrapping I could capture some of the thought processes that one goes through when given a simple task.
I think this wee starter project deals more with the physical act of wrapping, documenting the performance, I guess in a way it’s a critique of our need to protect and insure the longevity of the world around us.
Talking to my classmates we chatted about what this could mean, we talked about, the nature of the collector, the throw away aspect of packaging, and how these ideas relate to Western art, opposed to culture where art is more transient, more temporary.
