Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with collaborators

Room to breathe: Ka tau hā te mauri

29 Aug — 11 Oct 2020

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with The Arts Centre Staff, Kōhatu (installation view), repositioned basalt foundation stones, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with The Arts Centre Staff, Kōhatu (detail), 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, Kōhatu information (installation view), 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, Kōhatu information, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, Kōhatu information (detail), 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, What’s in a name? (installation view), 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, What’s in a name?, student reflections on the creation of lashed letter forms written by tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, What’s in a name? (detail), student reflections on the creation of lashed letter forms written by tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, What’s in a name?, (installation view), 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, What’s in a name?, kōrari fence made from lashed letter forms, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira and Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, What’s in a name? (detail), kōrari fence made from lashed letter forms, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with tamariki from Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira, What’s in a name? (detail), kōrari fence made from lashed letter forms, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon with collaborators, To hold up the sky (installation view), 2020. Right: Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, Cora-Allan Wickliffe, Daniel Twiss, Dean Cross, Tsēmā Igharas, and Richelle Bear Hat, To hold up the sky (installation view), instructional documents and digital photographs, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, To hold up the sky, instructional documents, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Cora-Allan Wickliffe, Our fourth house, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Daniel Twiss, Lifting the sky, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Dean Cross, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Tsēmā Igharas, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Richelle Bear Hat, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, part of To hold up the sky, digital photograph, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, To hold up the sky, earth, kōrari, Aunty Helen’s quilt made for
Felicity and Martin, 2020. Photo: Janneth Gil.

Exhibition runs: 29 August – 11 October 2020
Exhibition talk with Martin Awa Clarke Langdon: Saturday 29 August, 1:00pm

Please note that as we are still at Alert Level 2 there will be no opening event but the exhibition will open from Saturday 29 August

Room to breathe: Ka tau hā te mauri by Martin Awa Clarke Langdon (Kāi Tahu, Waikato-Tainui) is an exhibition comprising three distinct but interwoven collaborative art projects: What’s in a name?, To hold up the sky, and Kōhatu. Each of the projects involves relationships to materials, places, and peoples. Local histories, and in particular the creation of a staged Māori pā, “Te Araiteuru” for the 1906-7 New Zealand International Exhibition, form the conceptual base from which each project was conceived and developed.

Each project approaches histories as remembered, lived, and ongoing processes of negotiation. What’s in a name? is a collaboration with Ararira Spring Primary School students who are working with kōrari (flax stalk) to understand the power of naming and think through the connections between identity and language. Their finished “lashed” works are displayed in the gallery alongside their reflections on the process. To hold up the sky includes the work of five indigenous artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Niue, Australia, United States of America, and Canada. The artists were invited by Langdon to create a space between land and sky with found and significant objects they had to hand and then record the result. In addition to the documentation of these newly-created spaces, a digital wānanga will take place on a closed Facebook group over the course of the exhibition. Finally, Kōhatu is a collaboration between Langdon and staff from the Christchurch Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, which seeks to tell the journeys of a selection of kōhatu (rocks) currently stored for future restoration of the buildings within the complex. These rocks have been moved to positions outside The Physics Room to provide places to reflect on the site and surrounding environment. These collaborations are embodied processes; as we know more and experience the perspectives of others, the tangibly known and seen become tied, frayed, separated, and severed.

Martin and The Physics Room team would like to thank and acknowledge the mahi of:

Tamariki of Kaunuku 1, Ararira Springs Primary Te Puna o Ararira

Artists Cora-Allan Wickliffe (Niue: Alofi / Liku), Daniel Twiss (Lakota Rosebud Reservation), Dean Cross (Raised on Ngunnawal / Ngambri Country, of Worimi descent), Tsēmā Igharas (Tahltan First Nation), Richelle Bear Hat (Blackfoot, Cree—Siksika First Nation, Blueberry First Nation)

Staff from the Christchurch Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora

Tim Veling at Ilam School of Fine Arts

Click here to listen to Art, Not Science Episode 15
Artist talk by Martin Awa Clarke Langdon

Free Downloads:

Room to breathe: Ka tau hā te mauri Roomsheet (pdf) A response by Orissa Keane (pdf)