Sponge City
August 17 – September 28
Sponge City
Celia Walker, Toni Hartill, Toni Mosley, Ina Arraoui, Kheang Ov, Nicola Ov, Di Smallfield, Jude Gordon, Esther Hansen and Bridget Burnett
17 August – 28 September 2024
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 17 August, 2-4pm
Curator’s Tour: Friday 23 August, 11am
Image Credit: To Hold – Toni Mosley and Hard-Pressed Collective
About the Exhibition
Sponge City is a group exhibition addressing urban resilience against the adverse weather effects of climate change. As feelings of unease escalate around the global climate crisis the need to take urgent action is critical, as can be felt throughout Tāmaki Makaurau after the recent extreme weather events.
As the title suggests, this exhibition highlights the ways that plants and healthy soils, like those within wetlands, can absorb heavy rain and release water slowly, therefore reducing the impacts of flooding. There are many wetlands in the region of Te Hau Kapua that need to be protected so that they may continue to shield the whenua from the increased changes to our weather systems.
Through the artform of printmaking, this collaborative exhibition addresses the recent flooding that our city has experienced and how this natural disaster impacted our communities. The artists of Hard-Pressed Collective challenge the traditional boundaries of printmaking to respond to our expanding environmental changes. To create the work, they have used environmentally friendly strategies, such as using eco-printing processes, incorporating locally sourced natural plant pigments, and utilising recycled and waste materials.
The artists in this exhibition worked collaboratively with Restoring Takarunga Hauraki to deliver educational material about how we can preserve our wetlands and restore their biodiversity to increase our knowledge on tending to the whenua we are responsible for.
Visitors to the exhibition will be able to take away a native plant to help enhance the biodiversity of their own backyards.
Sponge City is supported by the Auckland Council Creative Communities Scheme and Restoring Takarunga Hauraki
Workshops & Events
Cyanotype Print Workshop with Celia Walker
Saturday 24 August, 2-4pm
Join us to learn about the photographic process of cyanotype printing.
We will be making prints using only sunshine and water to create distinctive blue coloured prints. Participants will learn how to coat paper and expose the image to make nature-based prints, and how to use ordinary kitchen products to alter the colours.
Drop-in session, suitable for all ages.
Sustainable Outcomes Presentation with Tom Mansell
Thursday 5 September, 6-7pm
Come along to a presentation by Tom Mansell, Head of Sustainable Outcomes at Auckland Council, discussing blue-green networks and flood mitigation across Tāmaki Makaurau.
A blue-green network is a system of waterways (blue) and parks (green) that:
• Give stormwater space to flow
• Help reduce flooding where people live.
This event is being coordinated with Restoring Takarunga Hauraki, our local environment group who are working hard to restore wetlands and waterways across the Devonport Peninsula.
Paper Marbling Workshop with Toni Mosley
Friday 6 September, 12:30-2:30pm
Come along to learn about the Japanese practice of Suminagashi or paper marbling.
We will be turning these creations into bowls that participants will be able to take home.
This workshop is suitable for all ages.
Tetra Pak Printmaking with Ina Arraoui
Saturday 14 September, 2-4pm
Come along and discover how you can make an intaglio print using recycled materials and a 3D printed Press.
During the session you’ll learn how to create and ink your plate, prepare the paper, and put it through the press. Add a layer of colour to the background or print from foraged leaves. Make a small edition to take home with you.
You’ll be using recycled Tetra Pak cartons, so if you have one at home bring it along! Tetra Pak cartons provide a soft and versatile surface to easily create a variety of tonal effects with a single drypoint needle.
This is a fun and easy process using non-toxic, soy-based inks suitable for the whole family.
About the Artists
Hard-Pressed Collective is a group of printmakers from Tāmaki Makaurau with an interest in collaborative projects and ecology-driven installations.
There is a shared aspect to printmaking unique to the medium, and this collective ethos, along with the ability to produce multiples, has enabled the group to extend their practice into large-scale assemblages. All have exhibited widely, and many have been finalists in major national awards and selected exhibitions.
Celia Walker
Celia Walker’s work focuses around altered landscapes and environmental change. Her ecology-driven practice sees her using locally sourced materials and non-toxic processes. She is interested in large-scale installations, and has coordinated several collaborative print projects.
Diana Smallfield
Diana Smallfield’s background is in secondary visual art education at a local, regional and national level. She has a Post Grad degree from Elam, UoA, majoring in printmaking and painting. The local landscape, and flora are a stimulus from which she interprets and rearranges to suit her continuum of process.
Ina Arraoui
Ina Arraoui currently resides in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and is actively engaged in print projects and exhibitions with a focus on community and collaboration. Her practice encompasses various print media and writing. Extensive research into contemporary print practice by local artists led to establishing the Printopia Festival of Original Print in 2021.
Bridget Burnett
Bridget Burnett has a keen hobbyist interest in printmaking and has been experimenting with various processes for 25 or so years. She is particularly interested in the technical aspects of printmaking – materials, processes, and techniques.
Judy Gordon
Judy Gordon’s prints consider the whenua and ngahere that sustains life. For her protecting our water sources ensures the future of a healthy functioning environment. Finding solutions to do this is vital.
Toni Hartill
Toni Hartill is an Auckland-based artist who works primarily as a printmaker, and creates unique artist books and sculptural works. Common themes in her work include a love for the natural environment, explorations of environmental concerns and a fascination for the strong ties that come with connections to ‘place’.
Nicola Ov
Nicola Ov is an Auckland-based artist and educator who enjoys working with different printing processes to explore colour, texture and pattern. Nature and the environment we live in play a prominent part in her work.
Kheang Ov
Kheang Ov’s work explores the idea of discovering and rediscovering the familiar and unfamiliar. His goal is not to unearth specific answers or memories, but to bring about a journey of co – discovery that enhance the integration of thought, feeling and selfhood.
Toni Mosley
Toni Mosley discovered print via film photography. Both are about process. Photography still plays a part in her printing as a starting point. She then decides which process will tell the story she wants to portray. Printmaking offers multiple ways to communicate, as each technique represents another language.
Esther Hansen
Esther Hansen’s work reflects on narratives that explore faith, nature and hybridity through her New Zealand, Danish and Dutch heritage. By looking back, she is also looking forward. She is drawn to the ritual of repetitive ways of working. She prints palimpsests of text and lace as a signifier that can cover and protect.
