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Showing posts from September, 2017

a grim retail winter in browns bay

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The winter season appears to have been such a poor one that several Browns Bay have either closed, or are about to close, their doors: Unfortunately “The Sanctuary” coffee spot only lasted six months or so - after a long and expensive fit-out. This is the old “Coast and Country” and Best of British shop. OWL lasted longer, but homeware stores just don’t seem to be able to stick it out in the Bay - this is the third one to go under recently. Old-timer Candeliere also went this year after many years in Bute Road. At the Anzac Road end of Clyde Road things are really looking grim - the bag shop closed last month, and very soon both the shoe shop and the Mega shop are going.

The wreck of The Victor - Browns Bay

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Demolition work on “The Victor” (“Prepare to be Amazed”) stopped more than two weeks ago, and there doesn’t appear to have been much (if any) activity on the site since then. This hulk is now even more of an eyesore than it was before.

pop-up art installation

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As part of Auckland Artweek 2017, I will participate in LOOK@KRd with a pop-up installation in the window of the shop Buana Satu 229 K Rd, Auckland. As an environmental artist living on the North Shore in Auckland, and am honored to be able to present this installation as part of my long-standing and on-going body of work entitled “Our Dying Planet”. My installation will have an environmental theme - the rapid and continuing extinction of species in NZ.  Entitled "Steampunk Explorers and Moa Bones" this piece is intended to be a wake-up call as to what we have squandered and lost comparatively recently in this once-pristine land. Brief Artist's Statement: "The story suggested by this installation is that in 1888 a group of steampunk explorers fly in an airship to unexplored Fiordland in search of the last of the moa. Unfortunately, the extinction of the moa had been rapid - it is estimated that within 100 years of Polynesians landing in New Zealand the entir