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Terminus project wants to discuss reveal and rework some specific dualisms and to rethink forms of public art engagement in an expanded idea of environment. The structure of the Terminus project is as a continuum between terminal points at opposite ends of the South Island. The intention was to select a pair of exhibition sites that enact a dualism between Natural and Urban, which I did by choosing Haulashore Island in Nelson Harbour and the industrial area around the Inner Harbour in Dunedin. I then asked artists to design a proposal that approaches both sites as a single project. The idea being that each project would find its own solution to working across the structural binary and in that way contribute to the discussion. Both sites are located in working ports, both cities have transitory populations and issues with isolation real and perceived, both sites have liminal physical characteristics and include access to water; so there are also a rich variety of ways to begin relating to both sites with a single project. Projects that fail to resolve the built in binaries are also likely to be interesting and valuable in terms of formulating new public art perspectives.
The task of finding a viable path between ideas of permanence and immanence has to be looked at when beginning that formulation. This negotiation of imperatives seems to me to remain one of the major questions for the new millenia for all artforms, as the proliferating uncertainty of the times bring a strong collective desire for return to and enclosure within forms of security. This desire makes itself known in art practices that are harmonious in intention, celebratory rather than critical. A balancing desire for an engaged artist citizen is to keep open the doors of discussion, to continue to be critically aware and to remain tolerant to new possibilities and ideas.
Here in Enzed where our artistic identity is so informed by ideas-of and relationships-to landscape the range suggested by the word environment would first be that of the natural world. The relationship of an artist with Nature is only one of many vectors in this discussion and even if they wish to these works cannot disengage from the social entirely. Looking further afeild than NZ, Nature art, Land art and Environment Art in a Western and European tradition tend to be associated with spiritual, transcendent, non-critical, harmonious and formal Modern agenda; although of course there are exceptions with the spillover of post object thinking into Process work and also eco-preservation intentions, these imperatives are generally not specifically politicised or articulated. So we could make an argument that the art convention called 'environment art' has become synonomous with 'nature art' and habitually polarised in opposition to any political concern other than ecology.
The term Public Art, while carrying broader associations than that of the term 'environment art' has become generally identified around the same dualism; celebration and critique. The work that affirms the identity and values of a majority community and the work that engages politically in intentionally disruptive and critical ways, usually representing minority or subaltern groups.
Public artforms are generally identified in the first instance as representing majority publics as monuments and cenotaphs. The role of the monument is historically well known as a focus for community bonding and shared feeling, as is the simultaneous role of the same monument for focusing fascist, nationalistic and other variously hegemonic tendencies. Since the art and philosophical movements in the 20th C that resulted in speculative art practices moving out of the gallery and into city streets Public art has had another face, but one that has tended to be about minority expression and the political goals of subaltern publics in various ways. For example artists like Vito Acconcci (who were specifically engaging and arguing with the ideals of Modernity through questioning the modes of presentation in art, and challenging canons of historicity and museum practices in the process) made works that were disruptive and critical in intention- if not outright revolutionary as were projects produced by groups like Situationist International. From the Situationists comes the idea of disruptive play. From Fluxus comes the idea of social architecture, inter-media, networks and relationships as art forms. Non institutional forms of public art in urban environments like tagging, postering, billboard modification, stenciling, vandalism, theft and misinformation also have an overt element of disobedience and defiance. These and other subversive interventions and urban art practices when adopted strategically often fail to be received and countersigned by the majority as art practices or even as viable political positions and can lapse, unrecognised and ignored, into cynicism and futility.
So its possible to draw attention to a dialectic at play, aggregations of duality around Nature: harmony, spirituality, community, hegemony and monumentality aligned coarsely in contrast to Urban: criticality, difference, cynicism, disobedience and political engagement. Where these dualisms meet or perhaps can be transformed is in an attention to site, or situation. For Terminus the underlying idea is that environment be understood not only as physical but also as contextual. An expanded idea of environment in which site responsiveness becomes active engagement with what is already there, not formally but contextually. This idea of situated engagement can be relational, social and historical as well as geo-political. Such a practice would not be either too violent or too passive because it would regard the situation as it was and be responsible to it in an art-conversational way.
The project has no explicit unifying theme as such but, in addition to the provocation provided by the two exhibition sites, artists were presented with the following starting points to stimulate their thinking.
1. Thinking about isolation.
Built into the structure of the project is the idea of locations where things begin and end. But more than this it suggests that while a terminus is indeed the end of a line it is also linked to something by that line, it is not disconnected but remains part of a larger network. What is the nature of that connection?
2. Artist's breaking ground/ accidental urban renewal, social reconnection.
Urban development ebbs and surges on social and economic migrations. All cities have zones that are in decay or in a state of hiatus. New growth sends its roots into the cracked foundation of the existing.
3. Environment in its broadest sense.
Can be defined as the precondition; the surroundings or conditions that already exist around a certain location. Location is physical of course, but location or situation can also be discussed in terms of natural, political, historical, social, psychological and cultural conditions. Geography is not apolitical. In this definition site- relatedness means intentionally engaging with something that is already there.
The explicit discussion of the nature of networks and ideas of artists as having a potential role in social reconnection are intentionally linked through Nicholas Bourriaud's theories of relational aesthetics and Richard Florida's thoughts about culture led regeneration. Relational aesthetics judges art on the basis of the inter-human relations which are represented, produced or prompted by the artwork. Culture led regeneration argues that artists have an active role in stimulating first the cultural strength and diversity of cities, and subsequently have an effect on overall community and ultimately economic health by making entreprenuerial activity in business and technology more likely. Florida's theories have often been taken very literally by cities seeking a causal formula for economic repair, who rush to build art galleries and cycle paths and hold seminars celebrating sexual diversity and wonder why the expected economic miracle doesn't appear. But the key point missed in such instances is that 'culture' is not something that can be created to order merely by providing a venue, it can only be collaborated with or fostered. Cultural activity occurs in exchanges between people, not in the appearance of culture created by elegantly designed buildings or plaza's with handsome statuary. In public art terms the conflation of these ideas suggest a positive role both artistically and socially for works that create and stimulate contact and engagement. In this conception the key goal and idea is participation as distinct from entertainment. The artists and their works are not primarily spectacle, but a social catalysing agent- a possibility for person to person contact.
NB: At this point it needs to be stated that the goals of the project were never so grandiose as urban health, but all artists enjoy the idea that their work may be more benefit to someone than as a pleasing design element, if this can be achieved without losing critical traction then bring on the dancing girls I say. A post project assessment could certainly include an examination and discussion of these possibilities.
The group of artists was intentionally selected to bring a number of contrasting starting points to bear in the discussion. I have intentionally included artists who have harmonious starting points and those who are more questioning and interrogative in approach. Some are versed in hard media and are likely to produce substantial object based and or sculptural installation work. Other's use a time based priority; a variety of performance work is represented as is work that uses forms of environmental process other than the body. Strategies were to ensure that there was a representation of artists working in each of the two regions in order to enlarge the idea of the regional play and migration in the dynamic. Added to the regional play is a third group of artists who work internationally. The international artists bring their wider perspective and experience as a grounding for the project. Terminus presents a cross-section of approaches, vectors of engagement that when looked at collectively may begin to delimn a range of current possibilities for public art which then may also allow us to formulate good questions to take into future practice.
John Lyall is interested in a construction of wilderness, continuing an ongoing investigation into an idea of feral art practices and the slippery re-location of paradise.
Gabriel Adams Andrew Clover and Don Hunter are engaging with signs, charting, navigation, surveying, borders and boundaries. Hunter plans to release floating markers in Nelson with instructions on them asking people to report the location where they were found. Adams intends to be artist/surveyor in reference to ideas of ownership. Clover translates and reinvents signs and symbols.
Iain Cheesman will be issuing passports and checking travel documents to the Haulashore protectorate in his official capacity as the Pearly King of Aotearoa. In Dunedin he will be guarding the pearly gates to paradise.
Liz Bryce and Sue Chudley are engaging with arrival, disembarkation, colonial issues, identity. Chudley making the approach through personal history, memory and nostalgia; from the point of view of being left behind in Britain by family who emigrated to 'the colonies' and lost contact. Bryce takes a wider perspective, looking at the two ports as entry points for a flood of arrivals that she references with an invading crowd of small cast wax cupie dolls photographed like tourists, in places of personal significance to her rather as well as at common visitor attractions.
Neil Berecry Brown works from a Fluxus tradition and approachs the situation through process; existential and phenomenal responses. Graeme Clements, Juliet Fowler-Smith, Dave Gooding and Lou Darcie Lewis are also interested in process but from a different starting point. Clements is interested in defining and creating a spiritual/contemplative space through ritual and using only materials found in situ. Fowler-Smith is working with process and materiality, creating allusive installations in direct site relationships also with limited and gentle palette. Gooding has a strong emphasis on making process often looking for found things to transform, with an engaged awareness of where and how his artifact/constructs end up. Lewis is making an approach from a personal psychological journey explored through tension and contradiction and potentially documented in sound and relocated domestic furniture.
Kaleb Bennet is also interested in sound as a transformative tool, particularly related to personal journeys. He will be making kinetic and performative use of existing urban relics.
Ali Bramwell is interested in paradox and sly reversals.
Ana Terry is interested in the idea of Mainland and island separation, specifically in Gondwanaland theory, species developing in isolation and introduced species. She refers directly to the threat of introduced species with a complex and humourous look at a new world order.
Mr Park, Byoung-uk, Miss Lee, Ji-Eon, Mike Baker and Fiona Gillespie are all performance artists. Baker and Gillespie are dancers interested in a liminal theme and using edges/interfaces, time and tidal littoral zone. Lee is also a dancer and will work in specific relation to the kinetic possibilities and physical tension of other artists works or architectural elements. Park's performances are identity oriented and will take place wherever there are people.
Andreas Pytlik's work is focused on transmission of the idea and form of 'green,' he will operate his work by remote control by issuing instructions to a green agent who will create various green interventions on his behalf.
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