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 a post from the One Voice Te Reo Kotahi blog. The post is titled, "One Voice Te Reo Kotahi Sector Forum: 'Questions regarding CERA transitioning out in 2016'".
A photograph of Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall.
A photograph of Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall.
A photograph of a woman looking at Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall.
A video montage of Canterbury Tales, a carnivalesque procession through the central city, led by Free Theatre Christchurch. The film depicts the construction and set up, through to the main public events. It also includes interviews with Peter Faulkenberg (Canterbury Tales and Free Theatre Christchurch Artistic Director) and George Parker (Canterbury Tales and Free Theatre Christchurch Producer).
A photograph of stencilled street art on a fence beside the St Martins Road roundabout. The stencil, created by Kerry Parnell, depicts daleks and space invaders, and reads, "Now panic and freak out".
A photograph of a detail of Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall. An outline of the cathedral's tower is sketched on plywood, accompanied by the words, "Mike Hewson 2012. 'View From Studio'. (We should try keep some part of the cathedral rather than just demo-ing it)".
The coordination of actors has been a major focus for much of the research in the disaster relief humanitarian logistics discipline. While much of this literature focuses on the initial response phase, little has been written on the longer term recover phase. As the response phase transitions into the longer term recover phase the number and types of actors change from predominantly disaster relief NGOs to more commercial entities we argue that humanitarian values should still be part of the rebuild phase. It has been noted that humanitarian actors both cooperate and compete at the same time (Balcik, Beamon, Krejci, Muramatsu and Ramirez, 2010), in a form of behavior that can be described as ‘co-opetition’ (Nalebuff and Brandenburger, 1996). We use a case study approach to examine an organizational model used to coordinate civil and commercial actors for the rebuild of the civil infrastructure for Christchurch, New Zealand following a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010/11. For the rebuild phase we argue that ‘co-opetition’ is a key behaviour that allows the blending of humanitarian and commercial values to help communities rebuild to a new normal. While at this early stage our contribution is limited, we eventually hope to fully elaborate on an organisational model that has been created specifically for the tight coordination of commercial actors and its relevance to the rebuild phase of a disaster. Examining the behaviour of co-opetition and the structures that incentivise this behaviour offers insights for the humanitarian logistic field.