rana haddad . pascal hachem . installation / performance . Letting Space . Artists in residency . Wellington | new zealand . 2017

 Our first encounter with Wellington, allowed us to notice three major issues:

1-       for a city of approximate 500000 inhabitants the number of homeless people is rather very high. The majority of these homeless are Maori.

2-     They have so many second-hand clothing shops.

3-     The history of Wellington and its water resources as per Maori, were totally irradiated. Only Maori were able to tell the story behind every water source and rivers.

4-     When asked about the river bed of Wellington, We were told  that there  are at least 12 different water streams within the city, each one with its own raison d’être based on the Maori’s believes… like the 3 different water streams that were meant for healing the sick by than and where nowadays the Kiwis built their hospitals.  Through our installation/performance, we chose to give life to these water streams, even though invisible to the eye, allowing for a new discourse to happen between Kiwis and Maori.

We chose to collect all the clothing that was considered as rejects from the 2nd hand clothing shops. Instead of having them dismissed to trash, we sew more then 1000 pieces together, reaching 150 meters long piece, that we simply coiled.

Then we started from the point where 3 streams joined into one by the hospital, unrolling the coiling and moving with it all the way to the sea shore, where the Maori center is located, tracing along the path of streams. When passer’s by asked us why we do it we will simply share with them the streams stories …this way citizens got to be informed. A doctor from the hospital came down to inquire, we also had people helping us out while conversing with us.

Our work responded to Wellington addressing "the stagnating and missing flow that made the city and seems to have been avoided and dismissed today from everyday life".

On the second night while stitching the cloth, came in a homeless Maori stating that this is the longest blanket for the poor that he ever saw! He was so right, since our aim was, for after the performance is done and the installation is over, for an NGO that provide chicken soups to disassemble the big roll and to have it shared with the homeless.

Curated by Sophie Jerram

urban dream brokerge | New Zealand | http://urbandreambrokerage.org.nz/unsettled

letting space | new zealand | http://www.lettingspace.org.nz