Please Return Me to the Earth

Please Return Me to the Earth | We Are Weather - Installation and Performance Part 1 & 2 | Brydee Rood 2017 | Corban Estate Art Centre and Western Park Auckland NZ

We Are Weather saw me collaborate with paleoclimatologist and University of Auckland Associate professor Anthony Fowler HOD of Environmental Studies in the development of an installation, workshop and performance project for the TEMP exhibition of art, science and climate change. In Please Return Me to the Earth 10.8 tons of Huntly coal quantifying the average NZ household's carbon footprint is installed in the centre of the park-like grounds on a wider bed of wood-chips. The performance involved a ritual arrival and dumping of the coal to a grounded public site with an experimental droning composition of earthly, ceremonial bagpipes derived from the iconic musical score Dark Isle by Iain MacLachlan 1963 and a gravitas gathering, collective contemplation, sharing and handling of the coal. Assisting Performer: Robyn Jordaan, Bagpipes: Lewis MacDonald. We Are Weather was generously supported by Creative NZ

Please Return Me to the Earth Part 2 involved the actual writing out of the 10.8tonnes of coal from Part 1, following the terrain of the landscape in Western Park Auckland and measuring 86m long by 7m high. Through this process the coal physically completes an organic cycle of returning to the ground and allowing the carbon to break down into the earth and biodegrade naturally. The text installation was completed through a public working bee supported by Generation Zero and TEMP. 

Images: Brydee Rood 2017

Silageballenchor

Silageballenchor Silage Bale Choir | Brydee Rood 2017 | Light Performance and Installation at Lichtkunst-Nacht with Künstlerdorf Artists in Residence Schöppingen | Vocal experimentation with Gregorian Chanting Sisters: Friederike Weritz, Louise Weritze, Clara Beutler | Site: On the Labyrinth, north of the Bell Tower St. Brictius Parish Church. This project was generously Supported by The Wallace Foundation, Boosted NZ Arts Foundation and Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen. 

Silageballenchor has evolved in response to the tide of agricultural waste residue from the plastic wrapping of silage bales with single use plastic stretch film. Schöppingen being in the heart of a vast agricultural terrain and in my home land of milk, butter, sheep and beef - New Zealand, these pale green marshmallow plastic wrapped bales that punctuate our landscape and their material dialogue with disposal and single use virgin plastics have inspired this direction in my work. The issue, like the clinging silage film, stretches far and wide on a global scale. 

Photographer: Hubert Hasler

Silageballenchor seeks to re-navigate our relationship with the agricultural waste, which underscores our daily life and habits of consumption. A purposeful movement within plastic shrouds and an experimental voice worship meld together to explore a spirited channeling of light, voice and material through the site; a stone labyrinth, at the foot of the St. Bratcius bell tower. The centre of the labyrinth is marked by a Chi-Rho symbol - a sign often used to mark a particularly valuable or relevant passage, one plastic wrapped silage bale is positioned directly over it within a composition of 3 illuminated silage bales intercepting the labyrinth passage as sacred objects of ritual.  In New Zealand, although there are collection and recycling systems in place where clean collected silage wrap matter is collected and shipped to Malaysia to await its reincarnation as future plastic material, you can still find used silage wrap draped along fences, thrown into rubbish holes, abandoned in paddocks and piled up in mounds awaiting illegal burning. Around 320,000 kilometres of silage wrap is used and disposed of every year in New Zealand - enough to wrap nearly 8 times around the circumference of the Earth. 

Images: Brydee Rood 2017

We Come From the Sea, We Seek Higher Ground

We Come From the Sea, We Seek Higher Ground | Brydee Rood 2017 | Installation at Artweek Auckland with Heart of the City. We Come From the Sea, We Seek Higher Ground in Durham Street East suggests a vessel washed up by a surging wave, dumped at the feet of city dwellers at a point 200m inland from the city’s original shoreline and quiescent beneath a skyline of stormy fragments. The work contemplates issues of climate change, rising tides, changing environments and survival. Materials: Bear Grylls Survival Blankets, Bells, Kayak, Oyster Shells. Funded by Auckland Council and Heart of the City, delivered in partnership with Artweek Auckland. 

 Images: Brydee Rood 2017

We Are Weather - Forever Fanning Futures

Forever Fanning Futures - We Are Weather | Brydee Rood 2017 | A collaborative workshop and installation project exhibited in TEMP Auckland | Generously Supported by Creative NZ. Forever Fanning Futures was collectively created; the 500 fans were installed as a precarious organic cloud-like installation in the ceiling space of the old Saint Michaels and All Angels Chapel at Corban Estate Art Centre. An openly penetrable art installation responding to the critical issue of climate change and how it relates to young minds. 

Workshops focussed on stimulating dialogues on carbon responsibility, sustainability and climate change; providing a space for expression through participatory art. 

Forever Fanning Futures was fresh, experimental, educational and fun with a focus on installation art, and finding ways to express the complexities of climate change issues through drawing, painting and haiku.

Images: Brydee Rood 2017