Travelling around New Zealand in a campervan, Hannah Camille and Mark Hagley stumbled across Oamaru. Seven months later, they are calling Oamaru home and have started a business called Stmpnk25. Rebecca Ryan finds out more about the young British couple.
Drawn by Steampunk's `raw coolness'Mark Hagley and Hannah Camille's Steampunk HQ exhibit the Universalis, which comprises machinery for making black holes to alternate dimensions, past and future.
Artistic duo Mark Hagley and Hannah Camille are not into traditional Steampunk, but they love the ''raw coolness'' of it.
Tucked away upstairs in the Woolstore Complex, they have set up a studio for their Oamaru and Steampunk-inspired business Stmpnk25, creating art from any unobvious materials or imagery they find.
Originally from Walsall, England, Ms Camille (32) and Mr Hagley (31) have been in New Zealand for almost a year.
After exploring the North Island, they headed south last year, making note of any places they thought they might like to return to.
On New Year's Day, they passed through Oamaru.
''We drove through and [Steampunk] HQ was the first thing that actually caught my attention,'' Mr Hagley said.
''We just kind of stopped and [Oamaru] kind of chose us.''
They had planned on travelling more, with Queenstown as their ''ultimate destination'', but opportunities started to present themselves in Oamaru.
Straight away, they found work at Steampunk HQ as artists in residence.
Ms Camille is a fine art and commercial photographer, who studied visual communication at the University of Central England, while Mr Hagley's background is in media, working in post-production for the BBC, Maverick and North One Television.
He was involved in the television project ManInBox with British radio and TV host Tim Shaw.
Ms Camille says she brought out the artist in Mr Hagley.
''I've always enjoyed furniture making, I've done carpentry, woodwork and restored cars in my own down time,'' he said.
''That was one of the main reasons we could afford to come here in the end, because we bought a few old VWs, restored them and sold them.''
Together, they ran a smoothie bar in the UK, but sold the business about 12 months before coming to New Zealand, in order to save more money for their travel.
They spent seven weeks working at Steampunk HQ, creating commissioned exhibits, including the Universalis.
Disguised as a wardrobe, the Universalis comprises machinery for making black holes to alternate dimensions, both past and future.
''There are not many chances you get to go full out, create what you want ... and get paid to do it,'' Mr Hagley said.
It helped them ''fall back into creating'' and they decided to branch out on their own as Stmpnk25 - ''Steampunk25 without the vowels''.
''I decided, right, we are Stmpnk25 and we are a design team that came together in the year 2025 - in a dimension in time where vowels were just taken out, not needed, everything had gone down to text, to the simplest form,'' Ms Camille said.
Everything is designed and created by the pair, by hand, in Oamaru.
Their creations are Steampunk-inspired, with a ''modern industrial homeware'' twist.
''We like anything that looks quite slick - we like rough and ready stuff, but we like it to have that slick edge,'' she said.
They opened their gallery in time for the Steampunk Festival weekend, in May.
At present, they stock, and are working on, a copper range, including etched key rings, photo frames and lamps.
Ms Camille has created a range of fine art prints, as well as a ''geekalicious series'' entitled ''Little Blue Penguins Do ...'' of penguins as Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Kiss personalities.
Their work is also stocked at Art on Tyne in Oamaru and online.
Life is a lot quieter and slower in Oamaru, particularly in winter, but they are enjoying a change of pace and looking forward to seeing what spring and summer will bring.
