Hamish Carter

This practice-led, socially-engaged research has developed a methodology for acting in conscious reciprocal exchange with ecological sites in urban Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. Reframing the use of tools and objects typically embedded in a ‘survival’ or ‘bushcraft’ context, the practice aims to be present in ‘meeting-with’ the occupiers of these ecosystems. Walking-Witness, Treaded-Trace (2022), presented at AUT’s St Paul St Gallery, was an installation based on the project’s earlier ‘backyard studio’, a provisional site developed during Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland’s August 2021 Covid19 lockdown. Out of this structure and through an expanded provisional walking methodology, methods such as wood whittling (wood-webs), graphite frottage (trunk-transfers), and printmaking (cambium-collaborations) contribute to an ongoing kit-based approach working collaboratively within the Ōpoutūkeha / Cox’s Bay and Te Waiōrea / Motion’s Creek catchments.