Place in time

As the devastating series of earthquakes that destroyed and subsequently closed off much of Christchurch city continued, residents in large areas of the badly affected eastern suburbs began for the first time to hear the words, Red Zone.

To revisit time and again. Days, months and years – a decade already. To study sites from multiple vantage points, ponder the changing light and respond to shifts in weather and seasons. A work in progress drawn from my unwieldily archive.

‘Over the course of a year (2005/06), I worked closely with a Christchurch firm of funeral directors and with families who had recently lost loved ones.'

In September of 2017, Haruhiko Sameshima undertook a short teaching and artist residency at the School of Fine Arts, producing a body of work about the rebuild of Christchurch's central business district.

An ongoing body of work about Christchurch's rapidly changing Cathedral Square. A sample of images made to date.

A body of work about Selwyn, one of the fastest growing districts in the country, both in terms of commercial and residential development.

(Re)Orientation is a work in progress and idiosyncratic guide to sites of significance to Christchurch’s post-earthquake narrative and the built and psychological landscapes that have come to define it.

Through the Trees was born from a series of trips Mitchell Bright took to the outskirts of rural parts of the South Island, mostly in an effort to escape the confines of the city.

The Cardboard Cathedral project captured the imagination of many, nationally and internationally. The building slowly rose, put together step by step, tube by tube, day by day – the handwork of those who believed in the idea.

Up From Water is a collaborative project that looks at three Christchurch pentecostal church communities.