3 days & 3 nights
Amelia Bywater and Alastair Galbraith
2 August - 4 September, 2005

3 days & 3 nights is roughly the life span of a household butterfly. In this sublime installation, the Kiosk becomes science lab. Inside a specimen jar the natural order is disrupted as replica lepidoptera become trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Caught in flux, the insects look as though they are the unwitting victims of a school science project at the hands of some amateur entomologist. And like watching goldfish in a bowl, the experience is bittersweet.

The butterflies are hand-made, imbuing each with unique aerodynamics and variations in flight patterns. On careful viewing patterns do emerge, and the invisible physics, or mechanics, of the systems that govern the process become visible.

There is a sense of mystery about the butterflies. They rest delicately on the cusp of the real and unreal. 3 days & 3 nights is a meditation on nature, mechanics, the body and the strangeness of life.

Amelia Bywater is a Christchurch artist.

Alastair Galbraith is the senior technical officer at Lincoln University. He has a background in aviation and electronic engineering.

Caught in full flutter
Arts Rated,
City Life, 16 August 2005, p8
Georgina Barr