Exhibition featuring Christchurch artists previews on anniversary of earthquake

Two years to the day after the Christchurch earthquake, works dealing with its aftermath are going on show at the Public Good exhibition at Ramp Gallery in Hamilton.

Graphic designer Matthew Galloway and photographer Tim Veling come from Christchurch and their works for this show revolve around the effects of the earthquake on the city, both physically and psychologically.

Tim Veling uses photo pairings to look at what was and what is. Photos: Gemma Stanbridge.

Veling was in the city for all three earthquakes. “It really just did stop [my photography] dead… I didn’t take a single photograph of Christchurch for about four or five months.”

When he took his camera out again, he said: “There was a certain amount of cathartic process, getting reacquainted with the city again and trying to put myself back into the environment.”

The series of photos for the Ramp exhibition are called “Adaptation” and are landscape shots of structures in Christchurch. The photos are paired to compare then and now, using Google Map images and recent day photographs.

“I’m trying to set up a connection between what was and what is,” Veling said.

Galloway’s work looks at Christchurch’s city logo. The logo incorporates the Christchurch cathedral which was badly damaged by the earthquake.

“After the earthquake the logo wasn’t a representation of where we [the city] were,” he said. One of his works in the exhibition is a new design for the city logo that he feels better represents the city.

“It’s a fail safe logo that you could put on anything, any time.”

The artists of the Public Good exhibition talk to Wintec visual art first year students about their works.

The exhibition explores how suburban streets, parks and buildings are designed and how that impacts on people. Ramp Gallery curator Kim Paton said there is a bureaucratic process where the decisions are made in a watch tower and dislocated from the public who use these spaces.

The opening preview for Public Good is being held tonight, 5 pm at the Ramp Gallery on Collingwood St. It is also the grand reopening of the Ramp Gallery which was closed for nine months for refurbishment.

Public Good will run from February 23 to March 22.

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