Bottled Ocean 2116
Pātaka Art+Museum
21 February – 15 May 2016
George Nuku
Bottled Ocean 2116 presents an expansive translucent double-hulled waka. Floating in space, it is surrounded by imagined creatures of the deep created from recycled plastics. Investigating the constituent parts of the waka, we see imagined creatures from the depths of the sea recreated from recycled water bottles. Upon the waka is a whare, a Maori meeting house. Carved from translucent acrylic sheets, we are presented with a vision that feels more like an artefact from an alternative future than a relic of the past. Here Nuku presents us with a familiar yet unnatural world made of transparent plastics. This imagined world is unfortunately a very real possibility in the near future. Today the ocean is inundated with so much plastic that it has become part of our ecosystem. Plastics break down into small particles which are ingested by fish and other sea-life. We consume this sea-life and in doing so unknowingly introduce plastics into our diet. Bottled Ocean 2116 asks us to analyse our role in this cycle and, more importantly, our place within a changing world. Here in the Pacific our immediate attention turns to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a mass of floating debris the size of Texas that now migrates around the ocean upon the seasonal currents. There is nowhere that is not affected by this tide of refuse. Even island nations as remote as Rapanui Easter Island can predict when their island will be inundated by waves of plastic debris as the gyre washes past their island each year. Given our increasing affinity for one-use disposable plastics, scientists estimate that by the year 2050 the ocean will hold more plastic refuse than sea-life. Faced with these stark facts, it would be easy to assume that Nuku is a campaigner against the use of such materials. However, as Nuku notes, our relationship with plastics and other oil-based products is far more complex.
In his art practice Nuku employs a Maori understanding of cosmology and whakapapa (genealogy), treating natural resources as living entities. In the case of plastics, the engagement is with Papatuanuku (mother earth) from whom the raw materials are extracted. This process of extraction has a significant environmental impact on the realms of Tangaroa (the sea) and Ruaumoko (a subterranean deity). Processing of this material has further impacts on Ranginui (the sky) in the form of gas emissions. In this context, the whakapapa of a simple plastic pen or water bottle goes far beyond the use-by date of these products. As a carver, Nuku engages with these synthetic materials in the same way that he would with greenstone or native timbers. Conducting the appropriate rituals that accompany their use – rather than fearing and shunning plastics – Nuku encourages an indigenous methodology that considers our genealogical connection to the natural environment. In tangible terms, this translates into a practice of sustainable resource management, being conscious of when and how we engage with materials to ensure the outcomes justify their use. The carvings on the facade of Nuku’s waka speak of an ocean-based culture, yet this is an uninhabited vessel, devoid of crew. Here Nuku reminds us that this shared vessel, the earth, Papatuanuku, will continue on her journey regardless. If we do not care for her she will happily close the chapter on us like she did with countless other species – just another beautiful tragedy in the long and wondrous life of this planet. At the heart of this work, Bottled Ocean 2116 pays tribute to the beauty of our species and the folly of our toil. While the achievements of the industrial revolution have produced some great marvels, they have also come at great cost to us and our habitat. Nuku’s work speaks in earnest for alternative trajectories, where twentieth-century capitalist imperatives give way to twenty-first century kaitiakitanga (custodianship). It is this indigenous approach to resource management that Nuku lays before us, offering a vision of hope and beauty in place of fear and ignorance.
Artist Biography
George Nuku was born in 1964 and raised in Heretaunga Hawkes Bay. He hails from German and Scottish ancestry on his father’s side and Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Tuwharetoa Maori tribal affiliation on his maternal side. Having attended Massey University, where he studied art, sociology, geography, and Maori studies, Nuku has gone on to an impressive career in the arts that has seen him exhibit extensively internationally, including a major commission for the New Zealand pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Currently living in Paris, Nuku first exhibited the Bottled Ocean project at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Taiwan and subsequently at the Rouen Museum in France. Following this exhibition here at Pataka, the waka will voyage to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in New Caledonia.
