For much of the year so far I’ve been chipping away on a fascinating project with the government’s Office of Ethnic Affairs. In the pursuit of community-focused insights I’ve guided group discussions with various religious and ethnic groups – including Filipino, Muslim, Hindu, Chinese, Mexican and Colombian. The topic of exploration has been diversity in attitudes and approaches to death, dying and the afterlife – both in the New Zealand context and in countries of origin. Themes have included the lead up to death, body preparation, funeral rituals, customs of remembrance, attitudes to afterlife and surrounding superstitions. Much of the investigation was centered on the uncovering of personal stories which reflect community practice that will contribute to an exhibition and public programmes at the Museum of Wellington later next year.
To compliment the group sessions I also sought out the input of a couple of established local funeral directors. They provided insights on the developments in cultural sensitivity within their profession as New Zealand has culturally diversified. I also met with Yakub Khan Tasleem – a Muslim community funeral director who additionally owns a popular Newtown halal butchery. Tasleem spoke of being guided and provided with a brave heart by his Creator to serve other Muslims via his halal services and role as a funeral facilitator. He praised the Wellington City Council in their willingness to support local communities to honour their dead in their own ways. He reiterated the description I’d received in our group sessions of perfume being applied to the parts of the body of the deceased which would usually touch the ground in prayer. The forehead, nose, palms, knees, shins and feet are all anointed in preparation for the ultimate act of submission to the Creator.
In search of a more ethnographic-oriented angle I was keen to talk to people in a relevant context of their actual lives while retaining respect for the sensitivity surrounding our topic. I found my chance when I discovered the free monthly bus to Makara Cemetery which is run by the good folk at Wilson Funeral Home and Harbour City Funerals. The bus takes an ambling route around southern and eastern suburbs before passing through the city then heading out to Makara. Many of the passengers join the journey every month to visit the graves of their dearly departed – with some having been every month since the service launched 18 years ago.
On board I encountered Samoan Catholics, Greek Orthodox widows, a fifth generation Chinese descendant and Polish refugee widows. Many rich stories emerged from this vehicle which brings together a vibrant mix of characters and cultures. Once at their destination passengers are dropped off at relevant areas of the sprawling cemetery where they have around an hour to pay their respects. As I moved between zones I noted the difference in graves from the simple Muslim markers to the more ostentatious Greek tombstones complete with special alcoves for oil-burning candles and Chinese graves which sometimes featured incense holders. Visitors performed various rituals respective to their faiths before we all re-boarded the bus and returned to the city. More stories unfolded – closer to the subjects of departed loved ones and cultural cues of remembrance.
“As you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields – watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.” – Kahlil Gibran
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Archival Adventures
Artist Unknown, Mission School, circa 1849 Image Source
A good friend recently showed me an illustrative version of the Lord’s Prayer in Maori.
I noted that it was credited to the National Library here in Wellington so headed over to see what related items were in their online archive. I came across the piece above – promoting an early mission school.
Thomas Kendall, Nuku Tawiti, 1824 Image Source
Alongside Maori adoption of Christianity, the archive also points to colonial attempts to understand local spiritual belief. Early missionary Thomas Kendall made this sketch of Maori gods – which he observed on carvings in 1824.
K.P.M. South Pacific Line, 1939 Image Source
Carvings feature elsewhere on the site – here on the cover of a promotion for a passenger ship run by major Dutch company, Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij. Framing Mount Cook they gave an exotic spin on the antipodean landscape.
NZ Railways, Auckland to Rotorua – the Thermal Route, circa 1954 Image Source
Switching from sea-faring to land transport, the Railways advertised its once popular route to my home town of Rotorua from Auckland. Rotorua drew tourists with its thermal activity, thriving Maori culture and welcoming hosts. The advertisement features a tiki alongside the train and Maori carving motifs.
Horatio Robely, Arms of Dr TM Hocken, circa 1900 Image Source
The tiki and Maori motifs were used again in this artist’s rendition of the initials of Dr Thomas Moralnd Hocken, who funnily enough headed to New Zealand to escape British winters. I can’t imagine he found much respite in Dunedin. A doctor, avid collector and historian – he donated his sizeable stash of books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera to the citizens of Dunedin in 1910 in the form of the Hocken Library.
Charles Hill & Sons Ltd, Models 27-49, 1897 Image Source
Fittingly, it was the good folk at the Hocken Library who had pointed out the Maori Lord’s Prayer to my friend – which I mentioned in opening as prompting my foray into the National Library Collection in the first place. Back home in Wellington I’ve been having a great time trawling the library archive discovering a wealth of local visual history. Hats off to the National Library – for old times sake:
Christmas Card, Kia Ora. For Old Times Sake, circa 1890-1910 Image source
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Wellington’s Blow Festival by the College of Creative Arts at Massey University hosted a Type-Walk this week on a blustery evening which lived up to the festival’s name. This didn’t deter the typo-centric amongst us who had turned up in numbers to the guided alphabetic amble. Highlighting the illicit alongside the historic – the walk encompassed character and characters from the Wellington cityscape.
Indicators of transitioning tenancy (above) were singled out on the Edwadian Baroque styled General Officer Commanding Building (1912) on the corner of Taranaki and Buckle Sts. It was originally built at the site of a former Maori settlement and is likely to be the country’s longest standing military administration building.
The Arthur St Boys Institute was built in 1906, in an interpretive Queen Anne style – which originally contained a gym, swimming pool and classrooms. More recently it has housed a printer and a musical institute and was moved 13 meters in 2005 to make way for the Inner City Bypass. It now attracts an abundant collection of street art.
Further down Cuba St was a coincidental sighting of Peaches & Cream set in Cooper Black – which had been referred to the day before in a public lecture by visiting Australian typographer Stephen Banham. He mentioned that he was initially so taken by the vibrant use of the 1920s typeface that he hadn’t realised that the sign (in a micro red-light zone) referred neither to seasonal produce nor dairy products!
Earlier this year Banham had devised his own urban tribute to type – Characters & Spaces: 1 City Block. 17 Stories. The comprehensive and highly successful initiative “takes one city block of Melbourne and peels back layers of graphic design. It tells stories we see in our visual environment, things we may pass every day… ”
Onwards on Cuba St we were directed to Catherine Griffiths typographic sculpture
A E I O U – 5 vowels in steel – launched earlier this year. Stitching together historic and contemporary buildings, the piece was commissioned by the local architects of the Cubana apartments (to the right of the sculpture). Catherine had been a significant driver of this year’s exceptional TypeShed 11 symposium at which I had the privlege of presenting.
On the corner of Cuba and Ghuznee, the former Hallensteins Brothers store was showcased. The founder Bendix Hallenstein had arrived in New Zealand from Germany during the goldrush and set up a menswear factory in Dunedin. This building was one of their 36 national branches, opened in 1920, which now houses Ernesto’s Cafe.
The Type-Walk made notable mention of various sightings of street art including the emerging form of urban or guerilla-knitting / yarn-storming or bombing. Its occasional inclusion of typographic characters and icons was discussed and I returned to the area today to snap this example on Vivian St.
Our typo-active guides were media designer Gerbrand van Melle and graphic artist Sarah Maxey. Gerbrand currently lectures at Massey University – a far cry from his native Dutch shores. He produced almost two decades worth of posters for the renowned Tivoli music venue in Utrecht which are being exhibited later in the week at the Blow Festival event: One Night Out. “Tivoli provided a playground to experiment with typographic and visual language and the opportunity to delve into experimental printing techniques.”
Sarah Maxey’s work has appeared across a range of print media from literary book covers to the New York Times and more recently in her fine stationery range . A fondness for hand-lettering features in both her commercial and exhibited work which often champions the happy accident. Earlier in the week she presented an exquisite selection of work while discussing the notion of Unexpected Outcomes.
Upon winding up the Type-Walk some of us headed down to the Matterhorn off Cuba Mall. I fondly remembered working next door some 20 years back when it was a kitschly Continental cafe which had been set up by Swiss brothers in its modernist building in 1963. (I still reminisce over their other-wordly asparagus rolls) It was later transformed by our good friends into the much-loved dining institution and wine bar that it is today. In keeping with its stylistic evolution, the Matterhorn was given a typographic make-over by my old pal and ever-talented colleague, Simon Endres, who has since ditched us to establish a design studio in New York. The Matterhorn provided us with a fitting spot to raise our glasses – for a celebratory toast to Type.
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“Attack complacency. Lay siege to boundaries. Load your catapult with options”
– fundamental Moxism
Recently I participated in a NextPlays lab by Moxie Design Group along with ten others from diverse involvements spanning government, non-profit and corporate realms. NextPlays is a transformative platform encompassing a culture of participation to explore sustainable future scenarios – then to imagine, plan and build strategies around them.
The session was exceptionally well devised as a fast-paced yet flexible programme which harnessed group energy and maintained momentum throughout the day. Activities alternated between presentations and discussion on context and challenges, exposure to inspiring case studies, rigorous team brainstorming around specific scenarios – and the personas that would be interacting with them. The seamless framework focused participants’ energy on a wide range of variables toward cultivating sustainable and transformative solutions.
NextPlays Labs have been conducted by Moxie with a wide range of organisations both global and local – from Air New Zealand to the World Bank and upcoming sessions with big boys Procter & Gamble. Each lab is specifically tailored to relevant issues facing the organisations, with the Moxie team skillfully migrating approaches on the fly to accommodate the unique needs of participating enterprises. Strategist Bert Aldridge notes “NextPlays is not about delivering answers but rather it’s an engagement tool to enable and build capacity around the seeking of solutions” while director Peter Salmon succinctly refers to its power to “catalyse conversations towards sustainable outcomes.”
The labs have been used in both Bangkok and Hanoi to explore urban development in conjunction with the World Bank Institute. Participants in these workshops have included community educators, climatologists, architects, environmental youth groups, waste management specialists and urban planners. In such company NextPlays has played a role in the aligning of agendas towards future-focused outcomes on a civic scale. Through encouraging an appreciation of inter-connectedness, divergent players discover potential efficiencies and opportunities.
And back here on home turf I found the expert guidance from scenarios to solutions, context to collaboration, macro to micro – all made for a highly rewarding and productive experience of the Moxie mix.
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Commanding commuter attention in New Zealand’s capital city is the Go Wellington Graffiti Bus that was launched earlier this year as part of the vibrant Cuba Street Carnival. While graffiti is often viewed through the lens of vandalism, its defenders claim that it creates a sense of belonging and expertise while providing a vehicle for publicly expressing personal, social and political viewpoints.
A chance meeting in a Wellington alley-way brought together the Goethe Institute and Auckland-based aerosol artists Cut Collective. This evolved into a collaboration with German collective Via Grafik resulting in an exhibition and panel discussions at Wellington’s New Dowse gallery and a live event at the carnival during which the bus was given its street-wise makeover.
By showcasing planned, commissioned and intricate works, exhibited urban artforms are placed on a higher plane than vandalism but reference to public space still seems relevant. Carnival organiser Chris Morely-Hall supported the idea that street art be hailed both in and outside the gallery context. Last year’s Street Art show at London’s Tate Modern similarly acknowledged a need to present works by urban artists outdoors rather than merely confine them to gallery interiors.
With urban surfaces becoming increasingly corporatised the bus also raises issues around the dynamics of disruption and motivations for street art.
“We are bound by our own decision-making framework that is based on pretty robust ethical values. We are business owners and ratepayers, so we are respectful of others in that position. By the same token, being contributing members of society in that way, we also feel we have some right of reply within a public space dominated by advertising imagery and messages.”
– Cut Collective member Ross Liew (aka Trust Me) Source: Unlimited
Go Wellington were amazingly cooperative in meeting my request to pull the bus out of circulation so that I could shoot it. While waiting at the expansive Kilbirnie bus depot I came across a driver who had been at the wheel of the bus on a number of occasions. He mentioned that it certainly gets a lot of attention on the street – good, bad and bewildered. Wherever I’ve come across it I’ve noted that while many people smile as they view this creative contrast to the usual corporate bus advertising, others frown at the irreverent path its cuts through Wellington streets. If a key role of art is to pose questions the
Graffiti Bus certainly qualifies – as it drives debate and salutes skills through the city’s main arteries.
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Melbourne Karachi Tram Project [external]
Note: more imagery follows in the Comments Section.
Respect to all mentioned in the article plus Lisa Mönchmeyer from the Goethe Institute, Flox + Component of Cut Collective, Go Wellington’s Siobhan O’Donovan + Darek Koper and my main man and personal bus driver – Alan.
Taking inspiration from the other side of the globe, I recently implemented a weekly Learnings Initiative amongst the crew at Tardis Design & Advertising – where I consult from time to time. I’d come across the What I Learnt Last Week approach from the good folk at thinkpublic – a celebrated London agency that applies design to improving service experiences in the public sector.
Back here in the Antipodes we each present our learnings as part of weekly Tardis Time meetings. It’s our way of sharing and reflecting on the diversity of inspiration, skills, sightings and experiences that come through the office or touch our lives outside it.
A little something that honours the week that was… before launching into the one ahead.
Everyone carries baggage and the current exhibition at Wellington’s Bowen Galleries examines the weight borne by those affected by learning difficulties yet acts a testament to their resilience. Visitors to the gallery have been moved to tears – not in the least, I feel, at being confronted with the reflection by which art mirrors society (and its failings) so glaringly back at us.
Textile artist Rosie White and her daughter Elisabeth (who is studying Spatial Design at Massey’s College of Creative Arts) pooled talents and concepts to chart experience with the New Zealand school system of their family which has 3 dyslexic members, including Elisabeth herself. Quotes from students, parents, teachers and principals are embroidered on school bags highlighting injustice and humiliation – in a layering of text and textile which was hailed by one visitor as “elegant yet pushing boundaries”.
“Why should how well you read and write be the catalyst of how intelligent you are?” asks Elisabeth who is finding her tertiary environment much more nuturing of her talents than the school sysem ever was. Given that the majority of dyslexics are of above average intelligence, one can only imagine how frustrating some scenarios must have been.
One bag in the exhibition recalls “She said try harder so I pushed hard with my pencil and got a detention – blow trying harder.”
Rising above it all, the main banner proclaims: My gift of dyslexia is my treasure. It no longer holds me back; it inspires me.
Rosie, as a parent, was constantly disheartened during the 23 years her children were in the school system. She embroidered some of the exhibition’s phrases upside down so as not to have to revisit the emotions they stirred up. However she is far from bitter and sees a key role of the exhibition as celebrating the unique insight and perception of dyslexic children. By telling challeging stories in a compelling format, Rosie and Elisabeth have provided us with poignant commentary. Rosie assuringly adds that “the good thing about acknowledging the bags one carries is that you can choose to put them down.”
High praise to Bowen Galleries for hosting this noteworthy exhibition and to the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand for their sponsorship.
A great visit to Christchurch last week to collaborate with Dorenda Britten of designindustry – a brilliant opportunity to orchestrate copy, perception and strategy in an inspirational setting.
Dorenda Britten brings together a wealth of knowledge and experience in utilising design as a strategic tool – extending well beyond physical objects and visual communications to encompass wider applications in the service and system arenas. designindustry has worked with engineers, health professionals, government agencies, tertiary providers, manufacturing firms and technology companies to keep rational, analytical, creative and unconventional forces in balance – with a distinctly New Zealand focus.
Dorenda is well familiar with the principles of co-design and I was thrilled to discover that she has developed her own rigorous framework which encompasses them. Co-design is developmental process which shifts ownership and power in a practical, outcome-based platform. I’m especially interested to further explore the notion of the convergence of design and organisational processes – creating and strategising with rather than for clients – because it seems arrogant to assume a monopoly on good ideas.
A SELECTION OF CASE STUDIES IN CO-DESIGN:
with parents and teachers by IDEO
with youth by thinkpublic
with the Guardian Newpaper by Engine Group
