A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A poem at Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch" in Spanish. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_026.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch". File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_027.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_020.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_025.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_024.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Avonhead Park Cemetery Interment Site. Central plinth. Inscription reads: "Etched in our City’s memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch" in Filipino. File reference: CCL-2012-02-27-AvonheadParkCemeteryIntermentSite-February-2012 DSC_028.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Personnel from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Singapore Army, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Urban Search and Recue Team, and St John, paying their respects to the people who lost their lives during the 22 February 2011 earthquake at a memorial of flowers in Cathedral Square.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Decorative flowers on the Bridge of Rembrance cordon with the Hotel Grand Chancellor and the Westpac building in the distance".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Packing up parts of the Cathedral for storage. Remains of Warners Hotel in the background".
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 27 January 2013 entitled, "For Lytteltonwitch".
A photograph submitted by Bettina Evans to the QuakeStories website. The description reads, "A memorial blanket in creation, depicting some of the buildings lost in the earthquake in Lyttelton. Dozens of people are helping with the sewing – this is a follow on from the heart stitching which happened spontaneously in Lyttelton on London street after the February earthquake.".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie's installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The site is the demolition site of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church".
A photograph of Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel at a River of Flowers earthquake memorial event in the Botanic Gardens. She is standing near the Tree of Hope and holding a hand-written message. The message is written on one of the All Right? Earthquake Anniversary postcards. All Right? posted the photograph on their Facebook page on 22 February 2014 at 1:36pm.
A copy of a letter from Hugo Kristinsson which was sent to Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, on 2 March 2014 . The letter was sent on behalf of Empowered Christchurch, as a response to the letter read by the Prince at the official Civic Memorial Service on the 22 February 2014. Kristinsson thanks the Prince for his letter and updates him on the progress of the rebuild. He expresses his respect for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for their compassion in the early 1940s to the victims of bombing raids during the war and acknowledge's Prince William and Prince Harry's philanthropy through The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry and The Princes' Charities Forum. Lastly he implores the Prince and the Duchess of Cambridge to visit residents from the 'low-lying seaside side of the city' who 'feel that their plight has been trivialised by the authorities in favour of prestigious big-budget projects'.
Disasters are a critical topic for practitioners of landscape architecture. A fundamental role of the profession is disaster prevention or mitigation through practitioners having a thorough understanding of known threats. Once we reach the ‘other side’ of a disaster – the aftermath – landscape architecture plays a central response in dealing with its consequences, rebuilding of settlements and infrastructure and gaining an enhanced understanding of the causes of any failures. Landscape architecture must respond not only to the physical dimensions of disaster landscapes but also to the social, psychological and spiritual aspects. Landscape’s experiential potency is heightened in disasters in ways that may challenge and extend the spectrum of emotions. Identity is rooted in landscape, and massive transformation through the impact of a disaster can lead to ongoing psychological devastation. Memory and landscape are tightly intertwined as part of individual and collective identities, as connections to place and time. The ruptures caused by disasters present a challenge to remembering the lives lost and the prior condition of the landscape, the intimate attachments to places now gone and even the event itself.
To address the provocation provided by the editors I wish to reflect upon the ongoing civic and artistic responses to the earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2010-11, in which 185 people lost their lives (largely due to poor engineering and construction practices). Whilst the example is very different in character from that of efforts to memorialize July 22, 2011, I wish to use the case to briefly respond to the issue of temporality as raised by Jacques Rancière in his critique of the ‘endless work of mourning’ produced by testimonial art. The orientation of this mourning, he argues, is always backward-looking, characterized by, ‘a reversal of the flow of time: the time turned towards an end to be accomplished – progress, emancipation or the Other – is replaced by that turned towards the catastrophe behind us.’ How might memorial practices divide their gaze between remembered pasts and possible futures? AM - Accepted Manuscript
A PDF copy of The Star newspaper, published on Wednesday 4 December 2013.
A PDF copy of The Star newspaper, published on Wednesday 6 November 2013.
On the 22nd of February, 2011 the city of Christchurch, New Zealand was crippled by a colossal earthquake. 185 people were killed, thousands injured and what remained was a city left in destruction and ruin. Thousands of Christchurch properties and buildings were left damaged beyond repair and the rich historical architecture of the Canterbury region had suffered irreparably. This research will conduct an investigation into whether the use of mixed reality can aid in liberating Christchurch’s rich architectural heritage when applied to the context of destructed buildings within Christchurch. The aim of this thesis is to formulate a narrative around the embodiment of mixed reality when subjected to the fragmentary historical architecture of Christchurch. Mixed reality will aspire to act as the defining ligature that holds the past, present and future of Christchurch’s architectural heritage intact as if it is all part of the same continuum. This thesis will focus on the design of a memorial museum within a heavily damaged historical trust registered building due to the Christchurch earthquake. It is important and relevant to conceive the idea of such a design as history is what makes everything we know. The memories of the past, the being of the now and the projection of the future is the basis and fundamental imperative in honouring the city and people of Christchurch. Using the technologies of Mixed Reality and the realm of its counter parts the memorial museum will be a definitive proposition of desire in providing a psychological and physical understanding towards a better Christchurch, for the people of Christchurch. This thesis serves to explore the renovation possibilities of the Canterbury provincial council building in its destructed state to produce a memorial museum for the Christchurch earthquake. The design seeks to mummify the building in its raw state that sets and develops the narrative through the spaces. The design intervention is kept at a required minimum and in doing so manifests a concentrated eloquence to the derelict space. The interior architecture unlocks the expression of history and time encompassed within a destructive and industrialised architectural dialogue. History is the inhabitant of the building, and using the physical and virtual worlds it can be set free. This thesis informs a design for a museum in central Christchurch that celebrates and informs the public on past, present and future heritage aspects of Christchurch city. Using mixed reality technologies the spatial layout inside will be a direct effect of the mixed reality used and the exploration of the physical and digital heritage aspects of Christchurch. The use of technology in today’s world is so prevalent that incorporating it into a memorial museum for Christchurch would not only be interesting and exploratory but also offer a sense of pushing forward and striving beyond for a newer, fresher Christchurch. The memorial museum will showcase a range of different exhibitions that formulate around the devastating Christchurch earthquake. Using mixed reality technologies these exhibitions will dictate the spaces inside dependant on their various applications of mixed reality as a technology for architecture. Research will include; what the people of Canterbury are most dear to in regards to Christchurch’s historical environment; the use of mixed reality to visualise digital heritage, and the combination of the physical and digital to serve as an architectural mediation between what was, what is and what there could be.
Personnel from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Singapore Army, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue Team, and St John, standing for two minutes of silence outside the Christ Church Cathedral in honour of the people who lost their lives in the 22 February 2011 earthquake.