Cultures blend in new gallery wall exhibition
VISITORS to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery are being met by a wall of white neon light beaming out from 192 fluorescent tubes.
It is the work of Aboriginal Australian artist Jonathan Jones.
Untitled (D21.281 Galari Bargan) is the gallery’s new exhibition on its Big Wall.
It took gallery staff about three weeks to install.
Mr Jones said he drew his inspiration from an exchange in the 1920s between the Australian Museum, in Sydney, and Otago Museum, of Aboriginal, Papua New Guinean and Maori material which included a bargan (boomerang) and two carved marae amo (panel boards).
His interest was drawn to a boomerang, which came from the area in Australia his family was from, and to the panels, which were used in casting the concrete for the Otakou marae and church on Otago
Peninsula.
‘‘This was this sort of this interesting cultural exchange starting to emerge between these two museums, a sort of colonial exchange.’’
The pattern takes inspiration from the markings on Aboriginal tools such as boomerangs.
He hoped people would use the installation to think about the indigenous people of both New Zealand and Australia and how they could learn from those communities.
The light emitted from the tubes was meant to mimic sunlight and give an impression of the gallery in constant daylight.