subsume, 2024
to absorb something into or overshadow something else
In recognition of the lingering effects of past actions on present day Aotearoa New Zealand, the subsume exhibition presents the cultural context of early European settlers through nostalgic themes juxtaposed with contemporary audio-visual representations of iconic native flora and fauna species.
In a single intensive decade, from 1890 to 1900, twenty seven percent of Aotearoa’s existing forest was cleared. At around the same time, a collection of music sheets was brought from England and bound at Leigh & Sons Bookbinders, High Street, Auckland. The lyrics of these sentimental songs contain poignant references to the social conditions of the period and express, perhaps, some of the reasoning behind many an immigrant’s quest to build a new life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
subsume is a socially engaged art exhibition and events programme using sound and touch to explore the legacy of deforestation as a consequence of early settler colonialism. The use of sound and touch can help the audience to make an emotional connection to the legacy of deforestation via (a) the social context of early settlers as expressed in the song lyrics and (b) the frottage drawing process* evoking 'touching' and 'being-in-touch-with' surfaces, difference and entanglement.
*Frottage is a drawing process where mark making is achieved through placing sensitive but resilient paper onto a surface and gently stoking with soft pastel, graphite or wax crayon.
Exhibited works comprise of a series of human-scale (2000x1000mm) tree frottage drawings, a set of archival digital prints of frottage tree drawings made on semi-transparent Japanese Gampi (8gsm) overlaying the vintage music sheets, and an ecological sound work combining the eighteenth-century songs with the sounds of Aotearoa’s forest birds, frogs and invertebrates.
In the sound work, mezzo-soprano, Claudia Evans, sings two songs from the collection. Her voice is heard within the environmental soundscape of native bush, full of haunting, melancholic calls that croak, crack, rasp, twitter and squeak. This work juxtaposes the tender eighteenth-century English lyrics with the sounds of Aotearoa’s unique forest dwellers highlighting the chasm between an idealised perception of nature and what the forest actually sounds like. It seeks to affect a deep introspective impact on the listener through the nostalgic quality of the sentiments expressed and the capacity of sound to trigger emotion.
Supporting social engagement events comprise of community singing workshops and frottage drawing activities, which speculate on the social, political and cultural context of the settler and the unprecedented scales of deforestation for economic/agricultural development to highlight the continued impact on fragile ecosystems. The hopes are that these activities offer a reflective and restorative perspective on the nature-culture divide reinforced by a growing awareness of human influence and entwinement in a big natural system.
