An art award built around the health of the Tamaki Estuary has reached its 20th year, and this year it was won by a drawing made on litter picked up beside the water.
Jessie Randles took first place at the 20th Estuary Art and Ecology Awards for The Body Remembers, worked in graphite and coloured pencil on a found cigarette carton.
“Created from a disregarded cigarette pack from beside our estuary, this work considers the parallels between the treatment of our bodies and the treatment of the environments that sustain us,” Randles writes in her artist statement.
“Lungs, roots, and mangroves reflect on systems of breath, filtration, and survival.”
The award carries $5,000.
Winners were announced at an opening function at Uxbridge Arts and Culture on 4 July, which began with a dawn ceremony involving mana whenua and O Wairoa Marae.
Uxbridge says the anniversary exhibition honours “the legacy of the hundreds of artists who have contributed to this conversation, while showcasing a new generation of works that respond to the pressing environmental questions of our time”.
Minke Lupa placed second for Te Maumaharatanga ki te Awa Hei Whanaunga, Remembering the River as Kin, a set of terracotta vessels made partly from clay gathered at the estuary.
Rubes Prattley-Jones placed third for a pair of wild clay pieces pressed against rock at Karaka Bay and Point England beaches.
Second place carries $2,000 and third $1,000.
Merit awards went to Kurt Payne for ENCROACHMENT and Isla Osborne for Three Sea Reliquaries.
The awards were judged by Charles Walker, Professor of Future Environments at AUT, who founded the university’s School of Future Environments.
Twenty-two works are on show.
Among the finalists is Penny Lin, who won the awards outright in 2009 and again in 2012.
Lupa is burying some of her vessels at Tahuna Torea between the new moon on 18 July and the full moon on 29 July, and has invited the public to join her.
The exhibition runs at the Malcolm Smith Gallery at Uxbridge, on Uxbridge Road in Howick, until 3 October.
A People’s Choice award of $1,000 is decided by public voting during the exhibition.
Uxbridge describes the awards as the only annual contemporary art awards in the country with ecology at their core.
The first awards were held in 2006.
The awards are supported by the Howick Local Board, the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society, the Rice Family Partnership and Gordon Harris Art Supplies.
