‘Traces’ of hotel on display in exhibition
A soothing recording of Cilla McQueen reading her own poetry fills the air as you enter the gallery.
The poem puts the audience inside Bluff’s 150-year-old Club Hotel before the present as it now sits disused.
McQueen and photographer Adrienne Martyn are showcasing Gossamer, an exhibition inspired by the hotel.
Adorning the walls of the Miharo Murihiku gallery on Don St, Invercargill, McQueen’s poem is printed on six white silks and flutters like curtains.
A former New Zealand poet laureate, a writer appointed to represent the country’s poets, McQueen has lived in Bluff since 1996.
Miharo Murihiku Trust director Pauline Smith said in the first week, at least 10 visitors to the gallery had shared rich personal connections with the hotel.
An 85-year-old who lived in the hotel in the 1930s had viewed the exhibition, Smith said.
The trust was ‘‘privileged’’ to have McQueen’s work on display, she said, describing the poet as ‘‘an absolute taonga, or treasure.’’
To print on the silk, custom stamps were made and, atop her ironing board, McQueen transcribed her work.
Martyn’s photographs detail the state of the rooms, trashed and decayed.
McQueen’s poem describes a vibrant building and displays the importance of history, she said.
‘‘We often don’t realise it’s even there until it’s gone. The present is continuously slipping into history and we don’t’ realise that.
‘‘Gossamer began as a lament of the hotel, now awaiting demolition.’’
For McQueen, the poem became a meditation ‘‘on our century’s tenuous grasp of history’’.
The hotel was still alive, but just the traces of it, she said.
Using The Southland Times, among other sources, McQueen collated information about the building.
The exhibit opened last week, with a tribute to artist Irene Schroder.
The hotel began in
1870 when Hannah Ward Barron began her own business. The building has been rebuilt twice, and hit by four significant fires.
Gossamer will run until March 15.