Sarjeant Happenings: Wai: The Water Project

The Water Project at Sarjeant on the Quay, works range from digital to painting and sculpture. Photo / Supplied

Three years ago 11 artists and Ashburton Art Gallery director, Shirin Khosraviani, went on a four-day trip in a mini van around the Canterbury Plains. Thirteen artists in all had been invited to "create works of art which honoured, questioned and brought to light our intricate and – at times – troubled relationship with water". Out of the trip emerged the artist responses that have made several exhibitions, one of which is Wai: The Water Project, a rich and diverse multi-media exhibition showing at Sarjeant on the Quay until 7 February 2021.

Bruce Foster and Gregory O'Brien have curated and contributed to the different iterations of the exhibitions, which have shown at various public galleries. But the genesis of the project dates back to an earlier trip the curators took along with seven other artists to the Kermadec Ocean. A touring exhibition and a book followed, raising public awareness of this near pristine area of ocean.

"Because the [Kermadec] exhibition captured people's imaginations they were drawn into the work – drawn in emotionally and able to appreciate why this unique area should become an ocean sanctuary and be preserved for all time," Foster said.

This approach seemed a good template for an exhibition on water issues in Canterbury.

"The Ashburton Art Gallery selected 13 artists, a seminar was held with presentations by iwi representatives, environmentalists, philosophers and scientists, all knowledgeable about water and its association with history, ecology and language, and then we jumped in a mini-van and toured the province.

"It was quite an emotional experience at times especially when we shared our fears and our hopes for future generations. One of the artists on the road trip was pregnant so we actually had a baby on board. For me, as driver, that really crystallised our responsibility to future generations but like the Kermadec Project, there was no agenda discussed or posited."

During the trip they learned from Ngāi Tahu sculptor Ross Hemera, also the group's kaumātua and guide, how Māori cave art had been submerged when the valley was flooded during the Benmore Hydro Scheme. As a child Hemera had spent many hours copying the drawings while his father went trout fishing in the nearby Waitaki River. His art practice is still informed by these experiences.

A year later the exhibition opened and some of the artists have continued to produce works inspired by the trip. These works have found their way into various configurations of the exhibition.

For his contribution, Foster unexpectedly found visual inspiration at the mouth of Waikirikiri (Selwyn River) where it enters Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere).

"I climbed up a stopbank to get a view of the river and I couldn't believe what I saw. The river was the colour of thick pea soup. While I was staring, a trout surfaced to take a few gulps then submerged again, and I thought, 'Holy shit creatures actually live in this stuff'."

The photograph he took of a boat further along the river hangs in the exhibition.

"It struck me as a potent metaphor for everything that I'd learned during the seminar and the trip around Canterbury as well as my reading about water - a purple plastic bailer full of water in a boat half full of water in a river that has an algal bloom. I thought, 'This says it all'."

Foster's videos suggest the consequences of fertiliser draining into waterways from intensive dairy farming, something that's happening all over New Zealand.

"When I create the artworks I take some liberties. I'm trying to mimic the baggage scanners at airports, to reveal something that's not outwardly visible, but causes real harm."

Wai: The Water Project is on at Sarjeant on the Quay until February 7, 2021