Christchurch Landmarks in the Red Zone

It's our final weekend and the gems keep coming in...

Today engineer Andrew and a colleague hosted brooches into the red zone for the first time. So we could resist sharing these straight away. Christchurch's two major landmarks: The Cathedral, and The National. (more photos to come after the weekend).

Final Days + Host A Brooch exhibition Auckland

Host A Brooch is now drawing to a close.  Our final day for participation is this FRIDAY 30th September.  The container will be open from 10am – 4pm, and we welcome you to take a brooch on your own unique urban adventure on our final day.

CLOSING INVITATION:  You are warmly invited to join us on Saturday 1st of October, between 10am & 4pm to celebrate the closing of the project. This will be a chance to see how the project has unfolded. Jacqui has been busy compiling and designing a Catalogue for Host A Brooch. Participants can come and pick up their free copy. 

For those of you further afield we'll send you a copy for $5 (incl postage). Email us here.


The project has certainly grown beyond our wildest imaginings. The container wall is constantly changing with new photos from each weekend's escapades.
Enmasse they present an inspiring picture of lively occupation of the city and jewellery's potential to activate connections with our urban surroundings. If you haven't seen the photos already you can see them on Flickr, and here on the blog.
For those of you who have joined us already, a big thank you all for your wonderful contributions to the project.  We hope you can make it down to see your photos on the wall!

See you soon!

PLUS:

HOST A BROOCH Exhibition in Auckland:
If you are in Auckland, you won’t be totally missing out... Jacqui will be presenting the brooches and documentation of Host A Brooch at Masterworks in Ponsonby next week.  We will both be there for the opening next Wednesday 5th October at 5.30pm and Jacqui will be giving an artist talk at 6.30pm. Love to see you there.

Host A Brooch: the full spectrum...

Thanks once again to another weekend of enthusiastic and thoughtful brooch-hosters.
This weekend saw some of the most adventurous adventures, hilarious escapades, as well as a more emotional experiences.

More than ever, active engagement was pushed to the limit with brooch-inspired bodily interactions with the urban environment. Adventures were wide ranging, collectively taking in the cordons, the park, and the museum. Road cones featured prominently as both theatrical props and body adornment.

Christchurch's Triadic Ballet?

Soldiers, workmen in high-vis and even Mr Whippy were co-opted for photos...

geared up for sewage inspection

And Regan and Lennie's 'C-O-N-TEMPORARY' photo topped as our favourite to date, summing up Host A Brooch perfectly: contemporary jewellery making the most of a temporary situation.

Peoples emotional responses varied hugely. Many found the project charged their sense of optimism about the city's potential for recovery. One inner city resident sat stoically in front of a collapsed house, commenting that the juxtaposition of wearing this 'contemporary object'* with the old and damaged behind her made her feel 'grounded' (*She didn't realise the brooches were made from demolition materials). The young girl accompanying her, when asked, said she just felt 'dusty'.

However, for others the experience stirred heavier feelings of sadness, grief and vulnerability, as their brooches drew them for the first time towards scenes of destruction. Some felt challenged to confront the reality of the city and the accompanying sense grief and uncertainty. One woman arrived excited to host a brooch, anticipating a light-hearted fun experience. However she was shocked to find her walk deeply moving and almost overwhelming: she returned after just half an hour. For her it stirred trauma from her younger life, saying 'I think this was one of the most intense experiences in my life'. In a similar vein, a woman the previous weekend commented that brooch number 7, worn by her young daughter, drew her attention to the ubiquitous bright orange structures flanking the city's streets. She explained she usually maintained a positive outlook by focusing on beautiful things - flowers, trees and intact buildings - and ignoring the rest. She felt this particular brooch forced to confront the actuality of the situation and felt 'almost horrified at the devastation of the city everywhere'. This made me realise that the brooches not only heightened awareness of people's surroundings and physical relations with them, but also their coping mechanisms.

Over the past five weekends photos from Host A Brooch have been accumulating and filling the container - as many coming down as going up. This meant the container has begun to operate as an exhibition with a large number local passersby, tourists and rugby fans pausing to look over the photos. We're currently busy compiling some of these a small catalogue that documents the project. The catalogue will also include text about the project and writing by Christchurch writer Sally Blundell sharing her experiences of hosting brooches.
All participants are invited to come on Saturday (the 1st) to collect a copy. These will also be available to the public for a few dollars.

See you then.

WEEKEND FOUR

This weekend is the second to last. We've been busy preparing the catalogue which will be launched next Saturday 1st of October. If you haven't already taken part, we'll be in the container 10-4 Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For those of you who've already enjoyed hosting a brooch, please come along next week and get a copy of the catalogue...

THE BROOCHES

For those of you following Host A Brooch outside of Christchurch, these are the brooches people have been hosting:

Where do brooches come from?

In case you're wondering, this is where it all began....
Read the full story here.

Interactive City - Weekend Three

Thanks again to this weekend's enthusiastic participants and visitors.
This weekend coincided with an on site exhibition of the new Draft City Plan (in the council's giant geodesic dome) and SCAPE's City as Memory and Imagined Futures panel discussions (as well as the 10th Anniversary of 9/11). This generated conversations ranging from excitement about a future 'city in a garden', to tears over the suggestion of leaving destroyed heritage buildings as ruins.

Fittingly, Host A Brooch participants ventured further into the city and around the cordons. People reported being absorbed in the detail, colour and structure of their surrounding, appreciating what remains, and as a result feeling uplifted. One woman summed this up saying "I looked up! I was amazed at what I had not seen before. The brooch gave me a different perspective of the city and I was surprised at how much of the city remained."

In the context of streets choked by hurricane fencing, road cones and barricades, Host A Brooch encouraged people to interact with and continue to participate in their urban surroundings. The brooches often resonated with the city's ubiquitous orange emergency structures, allowing these earthquake-reminders to be appreciated as something fun and even beautiful amongst the grey. They became theatrical props: road cones became a lens through which to focus a view of the brooch+wearer+city or adornments in themselves; barcades became supports for the body; and local portaloo-humour surfaced. Some participants selected situations and assumed postures to communicate specific thoughts about the brooch and the city.
For one overseas visitor, the giant barrier mesh brooch drew attention to the controlling presence of mesh fencing, barricades and road cones - placed to obstruct movement. These allowed her to reflect on the fear associated with the earthquake and human relationships to land more generally. In the drained bed of Lake Victoria the brooch drew her attention to massive earthmoving machinery as well as the cracked soil; both signs of human intervention on natural systems. She staged a series of photos, reclining on a bulldozer, posing as a conqueror on the golf course, and hiding from the earthquakes.
For others, the brooches themselves felt interactive. One woman comments on feeling a sense of company despite being out alone - perhaps anticipating the audience that would share the experience via the photos. Other's claimed the brooch made them buy coffee or demanded icecreams!

This week, several people also commented that including themselves in their photos was challenging. They remarked that they were accustomed to taking photos of things around them, but Host a Brooch made them position themselves as part of the scene. One woman commented that she sensed disapproval from bystanders when she took photos of herself in front of the rubble. She speculated that they thought she was being a tourist and that taking photos in front of the rubble was bad taste. People even honked their horns at her - whereas, noone noticed when she shot the rubble alone. Others preferred to take photos of the brooch without the body. This had a different effect, connecting the brooch-as-object with its surroundings, allowing the body to remain a bystander.

Three weekends in, the wall down at the Host A Brooch Depot is quickly filling up with photos of people's adventures. Come on down and take a look or you can also see larger number of them on flickr.

ANOTHER THANK YOU TO HOST A BROOCH SUPPORTERS:

Host A Brooch has been a team effort, and wouldn't have been possible without the support of the following people.

A special thank you to:

www.creativenz.govt.nz

Thank you to Signdisplays for the fabulous sign and vinyl printing:





Thanks Activa for our racy red flooring and Steel & Tube for the steel mesh:

Thanks Verve for your excellent service and beautiful printing, and thanks Badge King for the ever-popular Host A Brooch badges:

Thanks to Action Scaffolding for their creative scaffolding and great team work, and thanks to the Arts Festival for providing the container:









Thanks for RMIT Link Arts & Culture contribution towards travel costs, and Huia Wines for their supporting the Host A Brooch opening.

THE HOST A BROOCH USER MANUAL

Click here to download a copy.

THE SECOND WEEKEND: MIXED FEELINGS

This weekend marked the anniversary of the September earthquake and the beginning of spring. This part of town (around the Art Gallery, the former Arts Centre, and Hagley Park) was teeming with people enjoying the sunshine. It also saw another bunch of enthusiastic brooch-hosters including staff from the Cantebury Museum (celebrating it's reopening this week), family groups, pairs of friends, and couples; both locals and visitors.

More than anything this weekend highlighted the range of people's experience in Host A Brooch.

On the whole, people felt increased awareness, being drawn to the colour, detail and materiality of their surroundings. They remarked that hosting a brooch allowed them to focus on the beauty of what remained rather than what was missing or broken, and made returning to the city exciting.  For some, this was their first visit to the CBD since the earthquakes, and very much a tearful experience. One woman commented that she worked in the CBD, but avoided looking out the window to spare the pain of seeing the fallen cathedral. Revisiting the city was also emotional for another woman who described the expedition as feeling like taking the brooches back to where they belonged; to the former 'gems' of the city. She wrote it:
"felt like a reclaiming of the territory - the brooch was part of the old city and on the brink of the new…. the brooch is an expression of both the loss and resurrection, hope for the future."
One of our highlights of the weekend was a vivacious older couple who claimed hosting the brooch made them feel youthful: borrowing scooters off children, hugging trees and making walking up hill much easier.

Surprisingly, some participants admitted the brooch didn't alter their experience of the city whatsoever. While they enjoyed the experience, the brooch didn't draw their attention to anything in their surroundings; they admitted "but that's probably just me". 
Another participant had a strongly adverse reaction to wearing the brooch. In this instance, a couple decided in advance to "take the brooches to see the daffodils". On a sunny day, amongst families enjoying the signs of spring, the man felt the brooch was an intrusion on the happy scene. While most interpreted the brooches as signs of transformation or hope, he associated the brooch directly with the earthquake's destruction and felt it an unwanted reminder. This made apparent the degree to which Host A Brooch drew on peoples personal feelings about the earthquakes and their willingness to be open to adventure.

Although awareness of our surroundings seems a basic part of life, for some people the concept was almost esoteric. One man remarked "Woe, that's a bit deep", when explained the project. Another participant commented that she found the exercise quite difficult at first. This seemed to highlight the degree to which we separate ourselves from the world around us.

Even when taken as a fun and light-hearted activity, Host A Brooch demands that people actively participate in and (re)occupy the city. As Sally Blundell remarked, this contrasted with the Earth From Above Exhibition (outside the park on Rolleston Ave) which maintained a passive mode of viewing. I realised times of transition, we can not afford to be passive spectators - waiting to see what 'they' decide to do with the city. It's critical that people are actively involved in the city and inventive about new ways of occupying it. Although architecture and infrastructure may take years, life in the city can adapt and continue.

Read more participant's comments here.

Some of the from this week: