‘Yellow Balloon’ —Blue Oyster invitation to (TOWER) Submitters et al

To Everyone who enjoyed the sight of artist Shane McGrath’s Gelber LuftBallon flying HIGH over Customhouse Quay on Monday 15 April

AND

To ALL Submitters on the (LUC-2012-212) Betterways Advisory Ltd application to construct a 28-storey hotel and apartment building at 41 Wharf Street

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You are warmly invited to the forthcoming exhibition hosted at Blue Oyster Art Project Space | Basement, 24b Moray Place, Dunedin

[public domain] Submitters may find their submissions pinned to the wall.

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Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project) is a series of new work created by Melbourne-based artist Shane McGrath.
McGrath’s practice has used rockets, planes and zeppelins as metaphors for escapism, exploration, memory and tragedy. For this series McGrath has been investigating the public debates around Dunedin’s proposed wharf hotel development. McGrath sees the issue as one that concerns the city as a whole, which has the potential to impact dramatically on the city’s future.

During the public submissions process there were calls for an on-site, tethered balloon to be used as an indication as to how tall the hotel would be. Using this suggestion as an entry point for his investigation, McGrath launched a balloon near the proposed site on Monday 15 April. In this context the balloon is not only a practical object for measuring height, but also references times of conflict (barrage balloons) which were designed to allay fears of attack and also to indicate that the city was under attack.

Gelber LuftBallon is not a didactic work or a protest, but simply a catalyst to encourage debate and add to the ongoing dialogue. The results and ephemera of the research project and balloon launch will form the core of the exhibition at the Blue Oyster which opens on Tuesday 23 April.

Watch the video at http://blueoyster.org.nz/upcoming/shane-mcgrath/

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Shane McGrath has a BFA and an MFA from Massey University. In 2011 he was commissioned by City Gallery Wellington to create a permanent sculpture in Wellington’s Glover Park as a part of the The Obstinate Object exhibition. He is represented by Bartley and Company, Wellington.

Blue Oyster Art Project Space
The Blue Oyster Arts Trust (BOAT) was founded in Dunedin in 1999 as the governing body of the Blue Oyster Art Project Space that provides a high quality, dynamic program of experimental and innovative contemporary art practice. BOAT is a non-profit and non-commercial organisation that is made up of practicing artists, curators and other creative professionals. The art project space allows a diverse range of artists to work experimentally, free from commercial restraints and irrespective of the stage of their career. Blue Oyster aims to broaden the interest and understanding of contemporary arts by providing a forum for discussion and debate regarding contemporary art issues.

The Blue Oyster is supported by Creative New Zealand | Toi Aotearoa and Dunedin City Council | Kaunihera-a-rohe o Otepoti

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Local body elections: who will explain DCC’s books . . .

Received from Hype O’Thermia
Monday, 22 April 2013 3:37 a.m.

“In the boardroom, [Ngai Tahu chairman Mark] Solomon favours plain speaking. He tells a story about trying to get his head around the accounting terms used in Ngai Tahu’s financial statements, terms like EVA (economic value added) and WACC (weighted average cost of capital).

To improve understanding of such terms he asked for an explanatory document to be created and issued that with the report to iwi. It worked. Recently at one meeting an 84-year-old woman stood and challenged Solomon, arguing Ngai Tahu’s WACC was 1 per cent too low.”

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 21/04/2013
Business
The wisdom of Solomon
By Rob O’Neill – Sunday Star Times
After 15 years on the board, the chairman of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, Sir Mark Solomon, is willing to retire, but he will stay on for the long haul if he can’t find the right successor to lead the tribal council. Solomon, knighted in the 2013 New Year’s honours list for services to Maori and business, said, as with any organisation, there were people who put their own interests first and people who put the collective interest first. In Ngai Tahu terms he calls these “I Tahu” and “We Tahu”. “I’ve always stood in the middle of the ‘we’ camp,” he told an Institute of Directors conference in Auckland last week. “It always seems to me that politics is about ‘I’ versus ‘we’.” Whoever takes on his job will have to also be a “we” person, he said. Read more

Wouldn’t it be great if “Greater Dunedin’s” pre-election commitment to transparency had resulted in something like this, to bust asunder some of the tools used in official obfuscation!

Imagine if such an explanatory document had been distributed to ratepayers instead of Rodney’s puff-mag, and not only given to councillors but read aloud, attendance compulsory, security staff present to monitor for sleepiness and texty-wexing lovey-dove or playing angry birds under the table.

[ends]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Image: Mark Solomon via stuff.co.nz