Fiona Jack

Her work considers sociopolitical issues and the ways we represent ourselves to each other. Within most projects there are aspects of participation, consultation and/or collaboration with people and groups. Through observation, dialogue, collecting and digressive historical research Fiona pieces together a fabric of references that inform the development of each body of work.

The series In time I will see things a little differently (2010 - ongoing) engages with the close examination of historical photographs, and two projects with Ngarimu Blair and Ngati Whatua O Orakei – Palisade (2008) and Kohimaramara (2008) – have drawn attention to historical acts of violent colonisation through re-enactment and re-presentation.

http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/people/elam/f-jack

PALISADE

A collaboration between Ngarimu Blair and Ngati Whatua O Orakei, Fiona Jack, New Artland and community volunteers. Manuka, rope, steel. 100 metres long. Okahu Bay, Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, 2008

In May 1943 a palisade fence was built by trade unionists and volunteers around the Ngati Whatua O Orakei papakainga in Okahu Bay on Auckland’s waterfront. It was built in an attempt to regain some privacy and maintain a sense of community in the face of encroaching colonial urbanisation which was exacerbated by the construction of a major roadway through the village that separated the main living areas from the sea. Less than ten years after the palisade was built the village was burnt to the ground and the inhabitants evicted with no compensation or purchase agreement offered at that time. In April 2008 Ngati Whatua O Orakei, Fiona Jack and New Artland organised a group of volunteers to reconstruct this palisade using similar materials and techniques. The palisade fence was installed in the same position as the original fence (now a public park alongside the roadway) for three months. It was then dismantled into sections and used as a community resource.

http://fionajack.net/2008/05/palisade/

What I have learnt:

I found the concept of recreating something like that quite interesting but it was done in all the right ways with all the right blessings
It is done as a gesture - importance of that gesture
Historical referencing, making things right that were done wrongly previously