Local Time - Horotiu: publication

_{Local Time – Horotiu (16-Apr-2012, 0900 +1200), Floating Easement. 2012.}

St Paul St Gallery sits above Ngā Wai o Horotiu, 'the waters of Horotiu', the name traditionally given by Ngāti Whātua to the Queen Street area and the gullies that are occupied by AUT University and the University of Auckland. The Auckland based collective Local Time (Jon Bywater, Danny Butt, Alex Monteith, and Natalie Robertson) will use Gallery Two as a site and provocation from which to research Ngā Wai o Horotiu. Through making, discussing, and extending hospitality, Local Time aim to increase our knowledge of this site.

St Paul St Gallery invited Local Time to develop a project alongside Assembly in Gallery One, connecting with its concerns in a considered and expansive way. Local Time’s response, with its focus on the physical and intellectual sites of the gallery and university, opens up questions about the role of the gallery in the colonial university and how 'educational' and 'cultural' institutions are negotiated.

Local Time are a collective of artists, writers and teachers who have a particular interest in finding methodologies responsive to local and indigenous knowledge. While they have previously worked outside the gallery, facilitating site-specific art projects and events, the exhibition at St Paul St will be their first gallery based project. Their working method within the site of the university and gallery will draw on the practices of artists, designers, writers, photographers and videomakers through collaboration.

Local Time (Danny Butt, Jon Bywater, Alex Monteith, and Natalie Robertson) are a collective of artists, writers and teachers who have facilitated site-specific art projects and events with a specific emphasis on local and indigenous knowledge. Investigation of naming and framing across multiple histories has underpinned much of their work.

For this project Local Time will be “camping” at one of the galleries at St Paul St, a university-based gallery sitting above Ngā Wai o Horotiu (“the waters of Horotiu”), a name used by local iwi for the Queen Street area and the gullies that are occupied by AUT University and the University of Auckland.

Inspired by conversations with iwi leaders about the history of place-naming practices in the area, Local Time will be researching the institutional and social conditions that led to the current name of the St Paul St gallery, and work in situ to develop a future name for the gallery that is fully responsive to the many historical layers of cultural activity at this site. You can read their report on St Paul St Gallery's name and site here.

Local Time will occupy the gallery in a multi-disciplinary, practice-based research investigation, in collaboration with a range of artists, designers, writers, photographers and videomakers from professional and student communities. Activating the gallery as a site for display, research, making, theoretical and historical discussion, and hospitality, the project aims to increase understanding of and engagement with the site among the public and whanau/hapu/iwi. The research also opens a range of questions about the role of the gallery in the colonial university and Local Time’s own positions as practitioners in these domains.

The overall aim of the project is to test the limits of conceptual and practical goals embedded in nominally bicultural “educational” and “cultural” institutions. Local Time will document their site-specific methodology to encourage its revision and application in other sites.

Actions

Monday - Saturday: Reading Group – A daily reading of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization” (2012)

Tuesdays 5 - 6 pm: Methodology Discussion and Project Report

Tuesdays 9 - 11 pm: Screening Events

Thursdays 5:30 - 7 pm: Public Panel Events

A number of events and actions were realised during the occupation including:

A 1994 Toyota Hilux Ute was re-registered as ARTUTE the day before the Local Time project commenced.

2. The ARTUTE enabled the relocation of the Suite Seven Collective’s 14 custom-covered mattresses and floor mats from Artspace to ST PAUL St Gallery Two for use during screenings, panels and workshops.

3. Local Time collected natural spring water from the Waiariki Spring near the University of Auckland School of Law, to share with reading group participants and guests.

4. Cora-allan Wickliffe and Morgan Tahapehi served over 100 guests in the gallery atrium in their ‘fry for kai’ project supporting Māori and Pasifika students on campus.

5. Local Time performed a boat action on the Waitemata Harbour, flying banners and flags from the Mahi Kai thundercat in support of the Aotearoa Is Not For Sale hikoi. (credit: Melissa Laing)

6. Two Hour Opening: AUT Facilities were commissioned to uncover three manhole covers on the concourse directly in front of the Gallery Two window, providing a view of some of the waters underneath. The ARTUTE tray was filled with ice and cooled the beer in Gallery One while a BBQ was served.

Local Time are now at work on a publication in collaboration with AUT design lecturer Jonty Valentine and Taarati Taiaroa. The publication will document Local Time’s many-stranded investigation into St Paul Street’s physical and cultural location through the question of how and why it has been named as it is.

Local Time – Horotiu (2012).

Local Time – Horotiu (2012).

Local Time – Horotiu (2012).