Walk with me : a performative investigation, researching contested memories at New Zealand's national site for remembrance, Puke Ahu : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
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Date
2014
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Massey University
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Abstract
Walk With Me is a performance art project that was born from an interest in memory
and memorialisation. The guided tour series initiates an investigation of site that
illustrates the power of the New Zealand Government to influence our national
identity through the fuelling of dominant myths at the new National Memorial Park
(Puke Ahu). The project has revealed the ongoing effects of colonialism and offers
participants an alternative to the memory formed by the focus on New Zealand’s
involvement in overseas wars. The Government’s spending on commemoration of
the First World War and specifically the centenary of the Gallipoli landings of 25th
April 1915, overshadows Maori remembrance stories of colonial conflicts, which are
discreetly articulated at Puke Ahu. The project’s focus narrows from encounters with
people at the site to concentrate on what is there, who is represented and what is
performed there. This is a memory work that is bound to the site by the ritual act of
walking and investigates the plural memories of the landscape.
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Keywords
Memory in art, Art installations, Pukeahu, National war memorial