Patricia Greig: Helping kauri thrive requires delicate balance

Tilt by Will Ngakuru, is an evolving work.

A Delicate Balance/Rongo Taketake a Tane, runs at Te Uru as a part of the Auckland Arts Festival and beyond (until April 19).

It has been lovingly curated by Ariane Craig-Smith and Chris McBride and addresses the social, cultural and historical value of kauri in the face of the threat posed by dieback disease. The pair are in it for the long haul.

"One exhibition - while it's great, interest flares up and it disappears," says Craig-Smith.

"The more we talked the more we realised this was an issue that wasn't going to go away. To use art as a tool to educate, raise awareness and build activism around the issue means a longer engagement than the one exhibition."

In 2013 the Kauri Project was born. After speaking to artists and curators within Auckland, word of the project soon spread further afield.

"It's more than just an Auckland issue, it's a whole regional issue," Craig-Smith says. "It's bigger than that " it's a nationwide issue. The kauri is such an important part of New Zealand history."

The show is a mixture of works created especially for the Kauri Project, as well as pieces that have evolved and reconstructed. Tilt, by Will Ngakuru, is a striking example of an evolving work.

Originally exhibited at the Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Plymouth over summer, the installation encourages viewers to consider ideas about the spiritual and physical nature of the land using diorama boxes surrounding a large tree construction.

Kauri Flow by Ian Clothier and Andrew Hornblow is a thrillingly intricate set up combining art and science. Sensors on two saplings and an infected kauri record the light conditions, nutrient flow and moisture levels of the trees and send the data to a website.

The gallery displays changes and corresponds with the data from the diseased tree.

A.D. Schierning's This Is Not An Archive, a series of five photographs of Tane Mahuta, the giant of Northland's Waipoua Forest, has been added to by Clinton Watkins with a cacophony of sounds collected from the tree.

Appreciating the grandeur of the kauri is all well and good but, as the title of the piece suggests, dieback is happening now, and the tree as a national taonga needs to thrive for future generations, not become a memory.

Ava Seymour's 2010 piece Triptych Lumiere is deeply hypnotic and mythological.

The three pieces were inspired by Seymour's residency at McCahon House.

Demanding a close inspection, they invite you to delve into another world, with simple forms and deep hues echoing McCahon's responses to the kauri during his time in Titirangi in the 1950s.

A Delicate Balance provokes discussion about preserving kauri in the face of disease in an accessible way that doesn't involve sleeping in a tree in protest.

The overall interactive beauty of the exhibition provides a space to reflect and appreciate the kauri as a national treasure, and what better platform to support the idea than the Auckland Arts Festival.

The curators, scientists and artists will discuss kauri research at Te Uru gallery tomorrow at 2pm. The Auckland Arts Festival closes tomorrow but the kauri exhibition will continue until April 19.