Blue Oyster Exhibition: Whakawhanaukataka, Jess Nicholson
2nd Nov — 7th December, 2024
Blue Oyster Art Project Space, 16 Dowling Street, Dunedin
Whakawhanaukataka is an exhibition of ceramic sculptures and installation that is attentive to how earth-materials, poeple and other things belong to specific places; silt carried along by a river to the shoreline, rocks that erode and tumble from mountains, objects kept safe in containers and mana whenua held by whakapapa to land.
The earth-materials gathered by Jess Nicholson for Whakawhanaukataka were sourced from various sites, including Maukatere mauka and Rakahuri awa - ancestral sites for Nicholson. Other sites include Waikuku beach, Huriawa north of Ōtepoti, Matatā near where Nicholson grew up, Tapu te Ranga in Te Whanganui-a-Tara where they lived for several years, ash from the fireplace in their flat and recycled clays from the Dunedin School of Art. Each of these places holds a significance and sense of belonging for Nicholson, yet the works dwell in thoughts of how a place can be home without connections through whakapapa.
Whakawhanaukataka brings a combination of vessels and forms together that are interlinked, yet that speak to their own transitional, in-between states of being.