(Tūhura Otago Museum)
A construction of coloured pipes and glass cases currently greets visitors to Tūhura Otago Museum’s Animal Attic.
The installation is the clever basis of a display of jewellery by Jane Dodd. "The Kingdom" celebrates animal life, the pipes forming a tree of orders, classes and species, all brought together to show the interconnectedness of Kingdom Animalia. While the bright colours may seem jarring in the attic’s sombre, low-key surrounds, the glass containers, reminiscent of antiquated bell jars, are a perfect fit for the venue.
Within the vessels sits Dodd’s art. All varieties of animal life are her subjects, from primates to sponges, birds to flatworms. And her art, though unconventional in form, is well-crafted and attractive. The many fine pieces include necklaces of ants, a giant petrel beak as a pendant and a kauri snail brooch constructed in part from kauri gum. Humour is an element of several pieces, such as the domestic cat with its empty food bowl, a "ghost walrus", a friendly orangutan and gibbon, and the "proboscis problem" of a proboscis monkey.
Dodd depicts all of these creatures, and the less widely known invertebrates, with aplomb. In her work we see that nature, whether our initial reaction is a smile or to recoil, is beautiful in all its forms, and is all family.
(Tūhura Otago Museum)
Elsewhere in the museum, the theme turns distinctly to the culture of sub-continental Asia.
"The Six Yards Sisterhood" is a display by Rekha Shailaj, senior lecturer in fashion at Otago Polytechnic. In it, she explores the history of the Indian sari, its place in western society, and modern reinterpretations of its forms.
The exhibition focuses on 12 saris, displayed both on mannequins and through projected photographs. Each is titled for its inspiration, usually a traditional style. "Baluchar-ite", for example, is based upon traditional Baluchari style. The photographs and accompanying video make it clear that the sari is highly versatile, able to be worn in many different ways. In its basic form, a sari is a rectangular length of cloth, and the style is largely created by how it is worn.
Shailaj’s display highlights the way the traditional sari can be easily integrated into modern dress — not just in the subcontinent but in expatriate communities worldwide. Information presented alongside the display makes it clear that sari wearers have often faced opprobrium as being "foreign" or "out of place" within this country, but the beauty of the costume is one which can complement and enhance the western styles it is worn alongside, and has a definite place within the fashion culture of countries such as New Zealand.
Two roads diverge in a yellow wood at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. In the exhibition "Rewilding", artists extrapolate on the idea of the garden and its potential to either become tamed into domesticity or to become a new, wild, Garden of Eden.
Central to the latter theme is "He (Disappeared Into Silence)", a large piece by Seraphine Pick in which humanity has returned to overgrown wilds filled with hallucinogenic plants. A heavily impastoed work by Philip Trusttum, "Dead Sunflowers" and an impressive lithograph by French artist Jean Dubuffet also explore the entropy of nature.
In the opposite corner is the garden as friendly domesticated place.
From the Pre-Raphaelitesque art of John Frederick Lewis to the more modernist styles of Robin White, and via formal botanical studies, the garden as a humanised, neutered space, this alternative strand of gardens is gently and attractively portrayed.
Perhaps the most intriguing pieces — in the sense of thought provocation, even if not aesthetic charm — are those where a more central line is explored. Notable among these are a series of casts of fresh and rotting potatoes by Ronnie van Hout, and a video of domesticated birds coping with the wilds by the appropriately named Hayden Fowler.
By James Dignan
