The exhibits

Press, 5 March 1980, Page 19

The exhibits

“Streets' Sounds” is Chris Cree Brown’s introduction to the exhibition. His 15-minute tape composition is a mix of the contrasting sounds we hear in the city. In his electronic street music, the sounds which most of us think of as backround noise—church bells, transistor radio, traffic—are contrasted with spoken sound.

With a series of slides, and a tape cassette of sounds, Gary Ireland presents his view of our streets at night. We see a typical Friday night, from the bustle of shopping to the the emptying of hotels. Finally, the night city closes down. In a series of three panels, the artist also examines the way in which we see crime in our streets.

Canterbury Museum and the Robert McDougall Art Gallery have combined their resources to give us a yesterday and today view of Christchurch streets, and the course of the Avon. Photographs form the 1880 s show muddy or dusty tracks between the first few flimsy buildings, and the swampy Avon stream with its narrow,, wooden bridges. The gallery’s photographs of the same scenes today complete a visual record of the city’s growth. The museum also contributed a display of Dr A.C. Barker’s clear and precise photographic images of early Christchurch streets. Dr Barker was among our first settlers.

The way it could have been, and may yet be developed, is graphically recorded in “Visions and Nightmares.” Here the Town Planning Division of the Christchurch City Council Engineers’ Department shows a sampling of visionary street designs from Leonardo da Vinci to the present day. Make up your .own mind about which are the visions and which are the nightmares. ,

, The town planners also present a graphic display of the historical evolution of the street and its sendees. Moving from the earliest foi-mal streets of the Roman military camp, we can see how we have acquired the features we now expect.

Walk into the gallery bay and you’re in the midst of Neil Dawson’s notion that our streets are becoming a no-mans land. A Map of a simple grid system has become a three dimensional form. The sculptor is asking us to decide whether or not our . streets are now “places to pass through rather than to be in”.

Robin Neate and Brian McMillan have used frames from a movie to create “Nightscape”'.; This is an abstract portrait in which the sensations of motion, light, and colour in .our streets after dark are caught in frozen moments of film.

7. An architectural perspective on our urban and suburban-environment. is on view in a selection of architects’ drawings in watercolour, pen and ink. The designs are by members of the New Zealand Institute of Architects during the 1880-1940 period. The exhibit is presented by the Canterbmy branch of the N.Z.I.A.

Television cops and robbers shows these days are all killing and car chases. Margaret Jane Dawson’s ten black-and-white photographs Of the routine work of law enforcement in Christchurch reveals a very different world.

“It took a while for me to realise that these people were not going to perform as they do on television,. so there are no violent or suspense-filled images,” she explains.

Our 20th century streets have their own character. Murray Hedwig has walked Christchurch streets; .using either a 4x5 view -camera or 35mm equipment to provide different perspectives. The viewer is on the move too,.aware of street surfaces, scale, and motion.

Ours is an “all-at-once-world of happenings.” That is L. Nathan Shustak’s view, so he has filmed his “Documentary looking at the streets of Christchurch” .from a moving motorbike with a camera bolted to the cyclist’s crash helmet,. The video tape has an original soundtrack.

Sculptor Bing Dawejrecalls that his early experiences of streets were the shops, praticulary bicycle shops. So he put that together with his earlier work on “energy machines” and produced “Bicycle—a Detail .” “Sculpture 4.79” explores the derailleur gear shift of that trendy transport, the IQ-speed bike.

.-..John Burrell'has turned “Wise’s Yellow Street Map (J-10)” into a painting-. The work raises the question of why some suburbs have a far greater population of streets than others.