What Lies Beneath // Te Uru- West Auckland Regional Gallery
Imagine the Land Project Auckland New Zealand 2013
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’What Lies Beneath’ a commissioned installation by West Auckland Regional Gallery, Lopdell House (now known as Te Uru).
The work explored the ecology of the life forms that dwell on the ocean floor and the current environmental threats of deep sea bed mining. Produced from soils, sands, and minerals from the Waitakere Ranges and the coastal iconic black sands, which carry a story of a journey form conception through the force of the sacred volcanic cone of Mt. Taranaki, which over the millennia eroded down the rivers to the ocean. The iron-rich sands have travelled over thousands of years up the West Coast via deep slow oceanic currents. Throughout the oceanic floor live the benthic community of life organisms that make up an integral part of the ocean’s food web. The work artistically maps the potential impact upon this fragile Eco-system that the deep sea mining and drilling of our iconic black sands would have upon the ecosystem beneath while considering our responsibilities as custodians of home, land, and sea.
