Archive Of Utopia Appears At National Library

MEDIA RELEASE For immediate release: Thursday 26 February 2009

Archive Of Utopia Appears At National Library

Bekah Carran I Remember Golden Light, 2009 Friday 6 March 2009 Outside the National Library of New Zealand, Molesworth St, Wellington

For just 24 hours, an intriguing collection of found images will go on display in a make-shift annexe outside the National Library building in Wellington. The annexe will be open to the public from the early hours of Friday 6th March, when visitors will be granted exclusive access to an intriguing archival room. The temporary archive suggests a diligent collector seemingly obsessed with collating discarded materials in order to preserve an idea of utopia, for this new collection holds only one type of item – found images that depict an impossibly beautiful world.

The temporary artwork by New Zealand artist Bekah Carrah entitled I Remember Golden Light is commissioned as part of the year-long One Day Sculpture series by the Litmus Research Initiative, School of Fine Arts, Massey University. Carran is known for her interest in utopian visions and architectural forms, both key components of her 2006 work Welcome home my beautiful optimist (Artspace, Auckland and The Physics Room, Christchurch). With I Remember Golden Light Carran creates her first large-scale public artwork.

The artist began her research at the Alexander Turnbull Library (located in the National Library), which is charged with housing and preserving materials “to enrich public understanding of the present and the past of the land and peoples of New Zealand and the Pacific”. By extending these principles to her curious collection of images, Carran offers an alternative repository of New Zealand’s collective memory – an archive full of society’s idealised representations of happiness.

Curator of the One Day Sculpture series, Claire Doherty remarks: “We might see our urge to archive as reflecting our desire to address a process of forgetting. In archiving, we must decide what is worthy of preserving. Carran’s new project invites us to explore the desire to preserve a utopia which never existed, but against which visions for the future are often played out."

Bekah Carran will speak about her work at a public talk on Monday 9 March, from 6pm at the National Library Auditorium, Aitken St, Wellington. In addition to the artist, Aaron Lister (National Library Gallery curator) and Sophie Jerram (curator, artist and writer) will offer their responses to the work. The conversation will be chaired by Dr David Cross, Director of the Litmus Research Initiative, School of Fine Arts, Massey University. Carran’s project is the seventh new artwork for Wellington in the One Day Sculpture series.

Previous works include a dramatic barricade which blocked Stout St (by the British duo Heather and Ivan Morison); a chorus of bells sounding a flood warning through the central city (Amy Howden-Chapman); and a history of relocated houses, published in the Dominion Post and accompanied by an artist-led tour of the site (Lara Almarcegui). The series continues in Wellington and across New Zealand until June 2009.

MORE ONE DAY SCULPTURE PROJECTS THIS MARCH:

One Day Sculpture is pleased to announce an impressive line-up of projects throughout New Zealand next month, in the lead up to the international symposium from 26-28 March at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

15 March Thomas Hirschhorn, commissioned by the Physics Room in association with Christchurch Art Gallery (Christchurch) 21 March Paola Pivi, commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland) 22 March Javier Téllez, commissioned by Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (Taranaki) 26 March James Luna, commissioned by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Wellington) 27 March Roman Ondák, commissioned by Litmus Research Initiative, Massey University (Wellington) 28 March Billy Apple, commissioned by Adam Art Gallery (Wellington) 26-28 March One Day Sculpture: An International Symposium of Art, Place and Time (Wellington)

ENDS

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