I produced a multimedia art exhibition on Stewart Island/Rakiura to communicate the value of conservation in light of a controversial pest-eradication project. To align with this exhibition, I supported the island community to tell stories of their relationships with nature through a print-making workshop.
Here are a selection of artworks and images from the exhibition.
It is hard to come to grips with extinction. It's like trying to comprehend the feeling of losing someone before they have died. You do not feel the pain in its entirety until after it has happened.
This work tries to make us think about what it might be like without our favourite animals flying, tramping and flapping through the forest.
Hopefully, with active conservation, we will not have to experience that feeling.
To me, the centre image is particularly powerful: the cranium of a young coastal moa, discovered on Stewart Island/Rakiura 80 years ago. This bird, that used to tread gracefully through Rakiura rainforest, is now gone forever. It exists only in museum collections and exhibits.