May the Winds Not Carry Us Out to Sea II

May the Winds Not Carry Us Out to Sea II | Installation and Performance | Brydee Rood 2022 | Whanganui NZ

This new iteration of May the Winds Not Carry Us Out to Sea explores experimental sound collaboration, directed and performed with a selection of musicians from Brass Whanganui collectively known as Damn Raucous Brass, on site in the Gonville Town Hall as an interarts presentation with my large windsock soft sculpture. Presenting this work in the old Gonville Town Hall September 23 - 25 2022 with GCUR - the Gonville Centre for Urban Research, enlivens & sustains a publicly accessible, creative activation of the space for the community to enjoy. This free community art event was generously supported by the Whanganui District Creative Communities Scheme

Images: Brydee Rood 2022

Island, Is Land, We Land

Island, Is Land, We Land | Performance, Live Installation | Welcome to Nowhere Festival | Brydee Rood 2021 | Mangamahu NZ 

Island, Is Land, We Land was undertaken on the morning of Sunday February 7th 2021 at the Welcome to Nowhere festival in Mangamahu, in the rural outskirts of Whanganui. A communal artist led performance on a tiny island site in the Mangamahu Stream, digging into our embodied connection with the whenua and the poetic construct of being an island together. The work seeks a deeper relationship with the Earth we inhabit in the critical context of Climate Emergency; Island, Is Land, We Land is a shared act of bare, ritual stillness. The concept also reflects narratives of isolation and togetherness in COVID-19 times. Participants gathered stream-side and removed their clothing, swimming naked to the island where 2 buckets of Papa rock, collected and carried to the site from Kai Iwi were waiting. With slow purposeful intent we collectively covered each other with the soft Papa in a connected movement of bodies, breath and voice.

Island, Is land, We Land | Photography and Sound Installation

Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui - The Sarjeant Gallery 2022 | Images: Brydee Rood 2021

A Future Canopy

A Future Canopy | Living Sculpture | Brydee Rood 2021 | Whanganui NZ 

A Future Canopy consists of six species of native trees; Tōtara, Kōwhai, Pūriri, Rata, Rewarewa and Miro - spread across the two green islands of the Burton Avenue to provide a continual food source of flowers, nectar and fruit for native fauna and pollinators. The habitat created will cater to the local birdlife and residents over generations to come. The inherent physicality and plant lore of the chosen trees creates a living composition that will enrich local ecology in the suburban landscape.

The official opening and planting day on Monday June 14 2021, involved sixty students from Whanganui East School, Whanganui Girls’ College, Cullinane College, St Anne’s Catholic School. As part of the project, each school planted a tree at this site and were gifted selection of native trees for their own satellite plantings on school grounds. A Future Canopy, was developed as a permanent public artwork with support from the Whanganui District Council parks team, the community arts coordinator and funding from the Eleanor Burgess Trust. Media: A Future Canopy - video of the planting day  | Article: Artist works with council and schools on ‘living sculpture’ project

Images: Brydee Rood 2021

A Remedy for Hopelessness

A Remedy for Hopelessness - Te Henga Gorse Collection Ritual | Performance, Photography and Drone Capture Video | Te Henga Auckland NZ | Supported by MAC Artist in Residence Programme | Brydee Rood 2019 

A Remedy for Hopelessness involved a ritual collecting of Gorse Bushes Gorse; Ulex europaeus of the Fabaceae (pea) family from land at Te Henga over several continuous hours of the day. The performance references the healing nature of the plant, the Gorse state of being, meshing with one's own feelings of despair in the face of human failure, unrelenting capitalism, climate change and extinction; working through contemporary intersections of art, caretaking, landscape and ecology. The work engages visual and conceptual narratives that stretch between the colonially rampant weed and the golden-yellow flowering bush - known as a Bach Flower Remedy for Hopelessness. 

Gorse has tenacious roots and like other legumes it catalyses nitrogen from the upper atmosphere – with a special ability to bring fertility and vitality to otherwise isolated and barren soils flourishing resilient in places where other vegetation cannot. It is these penetrating and fierce qualities of Gorse, which have personally driven me to work with it in my performance as part of a new body of work. The essence of Gorse is intrinsically connected with the gathering of the Gorse bushes. By working with Gorse at a physical level, I embody a poetic contemplation of its medicinal, magical and permacultural properties and values; contemplating its relationship to wellbeing through creative practice. This collecting of Gorse Bushes marks the beginning of a new direction in my work.

 A Remedy for Hopelessness Gorse Collection Ritual - Brydee Rood 2019 | Shutterbug - Conan Fitzpatrick

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A Dance That Lasts Forever

A Dance That Lasts Forever | Installation | Waiheke Island Sculpture on the Gulf NZ | Brydee Rood 2019
As the work creates a movement with the wind and the site, it reflects the dance of our consumed traces repeating in nature. Echoing the drift of micro-plastics carried in the elements a dance of dire consequence for ocean habitats and marine species. By hoisting large colour sheets to the wind, soft plastics flutter on lines that lean and tilt with a precarity that is true to its context. I am placing the material again in our path, floating visibly in our mind’s eye. A dance that passes through our touch so fleetingly yet a dance that lasts forever.

Images: Brydee Rood 2019

May the Winds Not Carry Us Out to Sea

May the Winds Not Carry Us Out to Sea | Public Art Installation for World Environment Day with the United Nations Asia Pacific Environment Office and support from Panuku Development, Kiwi Bottle Drive and Greenpeace NZ | Eastern Viaduct Auckland NZ | Brydee Rood 2018 

Article on Design Boom and Video by Greenpeace NZ UN Environment Feature: Plastic the Art Medium of the Modern Era

Images: Brydee Rood 2018

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession | Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi 2015 | Site-specific Performance and Video Project at Matheran Green Festival Maharashtra India

The Matheran Waste Cart Procession was created as a direct response to the environs of Matheran - meaning "forest on the forehead" an eco sensitive Bombay Hill station “discovered by Hugh Poyntz Malet, the then district collector of Thane district in May 1850. Today Matheran is a very curious place, without modes of popular transport cars, bikes, busses... the tradition of riding by horseback, hand pulled cart or walking prevails and impacts positively on daily life, an inviting lush destination popular with visitors. On the other hand - the impacts and residues of human waste are evident throughout the delicate habitat. Plummeting breath taking views into Matheran’s green valleys are belied by accumulated carpets of thrown plastic bottles, food packets, snack plates... The evidence of a contemporary human presence carelessly left in the wake of their collective daily life. From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession spurred from the context of life in Matheran Hills, a performance action, which involved high-jacking a working rubbish collection cart, and honouring its workers and the process of waste collection by unfolding a series of a sacred rituals throughout the procession from the main market place to the Matheran Dumping Ground. We created garments from silver plates, leaf plates and recycled fabrics; we decorated Jharoo with gold and silver foils and ribbons, and used them like warrior’s arms or ceremonial staffs. Our heads were adorned with a crowning 3rd eye for nature something befitting the forest on the forehead and empowering the inner eco- warrior and garbage goddess queen.

Images Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi 2015

Ikebana Bins

Ikebana Bins | Brydee Rood 2015 | Headland Sculpture on the Gulf Waiheke Island New Zealand | Materials: Assorted Native Flora, Soil, Wheelie Bins - Waste Management Waiheke Island, Gold and Silver Leaf | Text: Too many times my ears have mourned the hateful scream of neighbours’ wielding chainsaws and when questioned - dropping comments like - ‘rubbish trees’ and ‘wasted space’ to describe an area of overgrown garden where natives and weeds have tangled up and taken over a patch of land. As a response to the ‘clearing’ without consideration for, or knowledge of native species or otherwise, of such suburban landscapes, Ikebana Bins is an eco-sensitive series of seven portable planters. Focusing on living native flora arrangements and using common wheelie bins as an earth vessel and inspired by giant Ikebana - a contemporary genre of Ikebana - Japanese floral arrangement and guided by the principle that Ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Jiyuka Ikebana is a free creative design and every material can be used. In opposition to the painful screech of chainsaws, contemplative silence is said to be significant in achieving a spiritual ikebana experience.

Image: Brydee Rood 2015

Sun Passage

Sun Passage | Brydee Rood 2014 Performance during the TellusArt Artist in Residence Program - Kaliyanwala Village, Uttarakhand India. Sun Passage is reflective walk through the wheat-fields of Kaliyanwala wearing a sculptural teepee-poncho of silver disposable paper-foil plates, the kind found commonly in the local market for serving samosa and other snack-foods. The silver plates reflected my passage through the environment in the fading afternoon sun. Sun Passage is a poetic movement concerned with agricultural landscapes and our temporary and disposable life. Sponsored by the Asia:NZ Foundation Arts Grant program.

Videographer: Klas Fredrik - Images: Brydee Rood 2014

Holi Dung Cake Temple

Holi Dung Cake Temple | Brydee Rood 2014 Site specific installation and interaction at TellusArt Artist in Residence program 'My Village My Nation' Kaliyanwala Village Uttarakhand India. The Holi Dung Cake Temple installation evolved in three parts; first was learning the cow dung process from village women and building the dung sculpture creations on site in preparation for Holi, secondly it involved fellow artists and villagers who were invited into the work to partake in a ritual throwing of Holi pigment powder - in a self initiated and inspired festive celebration of the cow dung and finally - the application of 100% pure edible silver leaf to the dung cake sculpture surfaces in an exercise of making sacred.

Materials: Cow dung, Holi festival pigment powder, 100% pure edible silver leaf, miscellaneous local decorations, solar lights. Sponsored by the Asia:NZ Foundation Arts Grant program.

Image above - Photographer: Ajmer Sandhu

Image above - Photographer: Peter Varhelyi

Image above - Photographer: Peter Varhelyi

Image above - Photographer: Peter Varhelyi

 All Images courtesy of Brydee Rood 2014

Untitled Land

Untitled Land - A collaborative project by Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi situated around a vacant lot come wasteland on Ambamata Temple Road, Udaipur, India 2013. Untitled Land was created site-specifically and dedicated to this particular plot of 'untitled land'. Link to article about Untitled Land / Materials: Local pigment, assorted rubbish bags, raincoats, auto rickshaw, solar lights and miscellaneous reused waste material.

Images courtesy of Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi

Photographer: Sunil Nimawat