Sensory Map of the Styx Pūharakekenui

Featured

Over the three months of Jo Burzynska’s creative multisensory explorations of the Pūharakekenui (Styx) River catchment, five specific sites emerged as particularly resonant. These became five works representing points on a sensory map following the river from the sea to its suburban source. The works presented in this exhbition will later become accessible from the actual sites in the catchment and online through an interactive map.

Engaging with the sensory, cultural, historical and conservational dimensions of the catchment, the soundscapes and nonvisual sensory descriptions draw attention to some of the less conspicuous aspects of the human and more-than-human lives lived on its banks and in its waters. These works encompass underwater sounds, from the bubbling of the springs that feed the river to the frenetic activity of the aquatic invertebrates that thrive in a healthy freshwater ecosystem; to human interactions with the environment, such as traditional rongoā Māori healing practices, and residents navigating life as minority species in a post-eathquake red zone. 

Selected works can be listened to below

Flux and Fortitude
Te Riu-o-Te-Aika-Kawa (Brooklands)
Soundscape 09:52

Pūharakekenui’s mouth; 
Open, tidal, ever shifting. 
Calm fresh waters mingle with the
Briny tang of the roaring sea.
A fluid community 
Where kōtare converse in the lagoon,
And crabs burrow in sulphurous mud.
A māhinga kai, a place of migration, a home, 
where river and land meet the sea.

With thanks to the residents of Brooklands

An Ecological Kete
Styx Mill Reserve
Soundscape 05:10

OVER hanging watery margins, 
harakeke, sweet-spicy-green.
UNDER its thrashing leaves
insects chirrup and buzz. 
OVER head 
birds feast and call, while
UNDER water 
creatures pop and click.

OVER is the shrieking mill 
stripping fibre for rope.
UNDER our feet now,
booms of a transfer station vibrate.
OVER recent years, 
more species make this home, as we
UNDER stand just how much 
our lives are all entwined.

With thanks to Christchurch City Council Waiata Group

Suburban Odyssey (An Outset)
Pūharakekenui Source (Nunweek)Soundscape 05:16

Here raupō once whispered and a river flowed.
Then strange plants escaped surburban gardens 
Colonising the riverbank,
And the city’s thirst drained these once wet lands.
Achilles heel is dry.

Inhale and listen.
Incense from an ancient Church blends 
with the sweat and cut grass of the sports field.
Cheers coalesce with hymns,
and young voices offer a karakia.

With thanks to Father Barsom Ibrahim and the congregation of St. Mary and St. Athanasius Church, and pupils and staff of Harewood School

Garden of Sensory Exchange

Featured

Audio-olfactory installation
SCAPE 2022
Christchurch Botanic Gardens, NZ

Consisting of a sound installation and an interactive multisensory game, Garden of Sensory Exchange draws our attention to the elements of life that often escape our visual sensors. Based in the Fragrant Garden in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, the site specific work captures and amplifies some of the unseen networks of sensory communication within and between species, present and past: from sonic messages shared by organisms in the soil to the chemosensory signals sent by flowers and humans that generate life.

The sound installation, played from speakers set within the pergola, comprises recordings of human and more-than-human nonverbal sensory communication. This starts literally from the ground up, with recordings made using a geophone of the minute vibrations of organisms in the soil. The installation amplifies sounds present at the site such as the worms under the soil, as well as those – such as the song of the tūī and taonga pūoro – that have been largely lost to the area through colonising activities.

Garden of Sensory Exchange also features an interactive multisensory game, which requires visitors to engage in their own crossmodal sensory communication. Crossmodal correspondences are the sometimes-surprising associations people experience between stimuli encountered through different senses, for example the smell of citrus is widely matched with high pitches. The artist also worked with a number of schools in an education programme, where students made a range of scented objects to initiate their own games of sensory exchange.

Images commissioned by SCAPE Public Art. Further documentation about the installation and the SCAPE Public Art Season 2022 can be found here.