Holly Van Huenen

A Matter of Time: The Cost of Inaction

The artist's projection and installation practice examines the gap between how Tauranga is imagined and how it is lived. Beginning with the image of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui as a coastal paradise, the work has evolved into a multi-projection installation, "A Matter of Time: The Cost of Inaction", that questions what that image leaves out. Three films on the Mount Maunganui landslide, the Rena disaster, and the decline of Tauranga city centre trace the decisions, and lack of decisions, made by Tauranga City Council. The artist uses their own footage, archival news footage, and footage recorded by their mum, projected onto blue tarpaulins that reference the covering and cleanup of disasters and construction sites. A border of sand stands in for caution tape, marking the work off as a site of warning. Found news articles about the council's failings since 2018 appear alongside the films, too many to use in full, which shows the scale of the problem. Grounded in their Ngāti Pūkenga descent, the artist approaches these events through kaitiakitanga, the responsibility to care for place. The work asks who is responsible when things go wrong, and who is left to deal with the consequences.