Monday, December 23, 2013

Modern Miracle @ Waikato Museum

This installation, created in collaboration with artist Karl Chitham, is a recreation of a previously unpublished description from the Museum of True History [MOTH] archives. The letter in question describes an unusual shanty town that grew around and onto one of the early timber bridges constructed over the Waikato River. Possibly a forerunner of the now iconic Fairfield Bridge and the much earlier Union Bridge, this ramshackle edifice was referred to in its day as a ‘miracle of modern engineering’. 


MOTH holds a number of significant collections in its archives. The letter described in relation to this installation is atypically in that it was deposited with no supporting documentation.  However, as MOTH’s mandate suggests this project is perfectly placed to ‘negotiate the relatively unbroken ground of presenting the evidence of obscure antipodean lifestyles in all of their strange, confusing and fascinating splendor’.