Graffiti on a damaged building on Colombo Street. The photographer comments, "This street art has been unseen by the general Christchurch population as it was off limits in the Red Zone".
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A graffiti-style recruitment advertisement for the NZ Police, depicting police officer Spence Kingi pulling a woman from the rubble.
Street art outside the Pacific Brands building on Victoria Street.
A graffiti-style recruitment advertisement for the NZ Police, depicting police officer Spence Kingi pulling a woman from the rubble.
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This thesis considers the presence and potential readings of graffiti and street art as part of the wider creative public landscape of Christchurch in the wake of the series of earthquakes that significantly disrupted the city physically and socially. While documenting a specific and unprecedented period of time in the city’s history, the prominence of graffiti and street art throughout the constantly changing landscape has also highlighted their popularity as increasingly entrenched additions to urban and suburban settings across the globe. In post-quake Christchurch, graffiti and street art have often displayed established tactics, techniques and styles while exploring and exposing the unique issues confronting this disrupted environment, illustrating both a transposable nature and the entwined relationship with the surrounding landscape evident in the conception of these art forms. The post-quake city has afforded graffiti and street art the opportunity to engage with a range of concepts: from the re-activation and re-population of the empty and abandoned spaces of the city, to commentaries on specific social and political issues, both angry and humorous, and notably the reconsideration of entrenched and evolving traditions, including the distinction between guerrilla and sanctioned work. The examples of graffiti and street art within this work range from the more immediate post-quake appearance of art in a group of affected suburbs, including the increasingly empty residential red-zone, to the use of the undefined spaces sweeping the central city, and even inside the Canterbury Museum, which housed the significant street art exhibition Rise in 2013-2014. These settings expose a number of themes, both distinctive and shared, that relate to both the post-disaster landscape and the concerns of graffiti and street art as art movements unavoidably entangled with public space.
Christchurch's Graffiti House... This Cranford Street house was damaged in the earthquakes and is due for demolished this week but has been given a Graffiti Makeover by local Street Artists.
Detail of a mural painted on the side of a building.
A digitally manipulated image of Michael Parekowhai's scuplture 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' on Madras Street. The photographer comments, "One of the two bulls on pianos by Michael Parekowhai called 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. They have been placed on the site of a building that was demolished after earthquake damage.
A PDF copy of pages 250-251 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Cardencity'. Photos: Trent Hiles
A PDF copy of pages 114-115 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Aibohphobia'. Photo with permission: Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. Photo: John Collie.
Images of Christchurch following the earthquake, showing the demolition of buildings, street art, art, community and cultural life.
The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu on Montreal Street.
COCA Gallery and the Christchurch Art Gallery seen from Gloucester Street.
A page banner advertising a feature titled, 'Street art: Christchurch's outdoor gallery'.
Liquefaction and flooding in Waitaki Street, Bexley. The photographer comments, "Due to liquefaction and broken drains the water left by the liquefaction stayed in the area for over a week".
A view down Gloucester Street, with the Art Gallery Apartments in the background.
Boarded-up broken windows on the old Christchurch City Council building in Tuam Street. The photographer comments, "What can happen to a building when the land is no longer solid as a rock".
The front of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu on Montreal Street.
Detail of steel bracing supporting the Colombo Street overpass. The photographer comments, "After the earthquake in Christchurch the Colombo St overpass got damaged and they used reinforcing steel beams to hold it up".
A view through a gap in the partially-demolished Crowne Plaza Hotel to the Forsyth Barr building.
Building rubble from a partially-demolished building is piled behind and partly against a large display window.
A video about the reopening of Alice in Videoland, in the back of the former Post Office on the corner of Tuam and High Streets. The redesigned space has allowed Alice in Videoland to expand from a DVD rental store to include an art-house cinema as well.
The back entrance to the Ng art gallery building on Madras Street. The awning from Bains of Madras Street sits on the ground beside cordon fencing around a damaged building.
Street Art in Christchurch: a Felix the Cat-like cartoon spray painted on a wall.
A PDF copy of pages 366-367 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Government Life Suspension'.
A photograph of people examining the artworks at the opening of the As Far As Eye Can See exhibition.