‘‘The Race Marches Forward on the Feet of Little Children’’, Matilda Fraser, and ‘‘two cups and a Jimmy’s mince and cheese pie wrapper’’, Jay Hutchinson (Blue Oyster)
Taking into account the curatorial premise of parallel exhibitions that investigate the artists’ immediate surroundings — in this case two separate exhibitions by Matilda Fraser and Jay Hutchinson — a further shared thematic can be discerned: nourishment. Fraser’s documentarystyle video work centres on the work of Frederic Truby King (18581938), who established what become known as the Plunket Society. Fraser intersperses locational footage from around Karitane where Truby King lived, and maps of the area with a performative sequence in which the artist adds Karicare milk formula to an empty plant pot that is then filled with a sapling to which further Karicare and water are added. These three main elements of the video work are subtitled with a text by Truby King on many of his key ideas and observations on resilient plant species, the importance of breastfeeding, and his dubious attitudes regarding women and education (less is more).
Huchinson also takes the Otago region as his geographical focus, but his series of needleworked art objects are drawn from detritus found on the urban streets of Dunedin. Although two of the simulated objects — two squashed cups: Wendy’s and McDonald’s — are symptomatic of globalised capitalism, the third object — a Jimmy’s pie bag — is the local exception. And, of course, the thematic of ‘‘nourishment’’ suggested earlier is debatable. The Jimmy’s pie bag is installed under a lifelike mesh fence while the two other works are encased in vitrines.