An unusual collaboration between a mountaineering glaciologist and a creative technologist artist has resulted in a showcase for the dramatic decline of New Zealand’s longest glacier.
The combination of western sciences, art and mātauranga Māori created the Haupapa: The Chilled Breath of Rakamaomao online digital exhibition.
The exhibition involves moving images showing different perspectives of the ice from above and below the water with the addition of a hydrophone to record the sounds of the ice calving apart from the glacier.
AUT associate professor of art and design, artist Janine Randerson and orator Ron Bull (nō Kāi Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Waitaha) joined teaomāori.news to explain the conception of the project and what it has been able to achieve.
Bull said that because of the way people are living with the environment the glacier retreats as much as one hundred and eighty metres per year and in its stead a lake has formed.
'Kaitiaki for us'
“It's because of the way we are living within the environment and the way that we are interacting with that place, changing and breathing in that place, causing that glacial melt, causing that centuries-old ice to leave,” Bull said.
Randerson said, “You will find abstracted images of the ice viewed from underwater, which I filmed with an underwater camera, and you will hear the underwater recordings of the sound artist Racheal Shearer, who recorded using a hydrophone deep into the lake”.
Randerson said the website is where people can view the documentary and then the artwork, which keeps changing as more live data collected by NIWA is added: “The winds, the sunlight and the amount of moisture on a particular day so it’s a bit like a creative weather report.”
Bull said it was a fascinating process exploring and finding the narrative of what haupapa is and the important naturally occurring elements for iwi Māori: "II's understanding that this place existed before we got here, as kaitiaki for us, I don’t think that we are kaitiaki for it; we have to be responsible for making sure that it and the environment can look after us in the future.”
You can view the exhibition here