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artist Karl Chitham, is a recreation of a previously unpublished description from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’.
