Erebus Memorial should offer healing, not sadness

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

OPINION: Why has the Erebus Memorial project become such a controversial issue?

Controversy often buzzes around public art, but it is usually about the art itself. The Erebus Memorial’s problem is deeper: the issue that concerns me is the way the project has been managed.

Bureaucrats and politicians should let artists do the art.

I am an artist and a designer and I was taken to Ross Island by Antarctica New Zealand in 2004. I have walked on the lower slopes of Mt Erebus. I was also one of the teams shortlisted to create a design for the memorial, but these comments are entirely my own.

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Internationally renowned designer David Trubridge of Hawke’s Bay, who was part of one of the teams shortlisted to design the national memorial to the Erebus disaster.

I believe that memorials should not just look to the past, but need to be relevant today and also consider the future.

Signs at Dove-Myer Robinson Park protesting against the Erebus National Memorial.

The passengers on the Erebus flight were drawn to see the beauty of the most wild, remote and untouched land on Earth. As well as paying tribute to their passing, the memorial should also respect that land.

It could be a place in which to reflect on its beauty and on the fragility of life, both of humans and all nature. A key player in the story is the maunga, Mt Erebus.

But when I heard that the Parnell site had been chosen, my heart sank. The leafy, urban park is full of colonial memorabilia and includes an English rose garden. It has been been overlaid onto a special, much older tangata whenua site, rich with different histories from a number of iwi, as well as some of the most commanding pohutukawa I have seen. What do taonga trees have to do with Antarctica?

Mt Erebus, the maunga at the heart of the story about New Zealand’s worst aviation disaster.

Then there are the distractions of traffic noise and park users, which negate the opportunity for quiet contemplation.

The whole process of selecting the site and the designers has been another ongoing form of colonial imposition: bureaucrats and politicians marched into an area they knew little about and imposed an external will that disregarded “local knowledge” – in this case that of the artists, some tangata whenua and the relatives.

In Aotearoa we have a better way that is of this land: in te Ao Māori a solution is not dropped down from on high, but grows up inclusively from the base and from mātauranga, which embraces community and land. In this model the land and its history become part of the artwork. The artist does not impose from above but facilitates and enables from below and within.

The project should have been offered out to artists to work with the communities and come up with a visionary idea that marries object and appropriate site–that allows space for grieving and remembering.

Only artists can do this and it is presumptuous not to include them in the full process.

Sadly we are used to this, as it is the norm for the artist to be brought in at the last minute: “Oh, we need a bit of art to go in that corner; and can you do it in a couple of weeks”.

Of course by throwing it wide open, some initial ideas will be too fanciful. But only by doing this could we have had one or two amazing concepts that take us far beyond limited imaginations. And to be fair to the bureaucrats, they are not artists–but they should recognise this and not go where they are out of their depth.

Imagine the creator of the Taj Mahal asking for planning permission and being told “you can have that corner there” when it is barely enough for the building itself.

Art depends on context; that building works because of the space around it and the effect of the water. It wasn’t just about building a mausoleum, but creating a deep experience.

When the organisers ran into vigorous local resistance, which had already been predicted when the site was announced, they had an opportunity to reconsider. But did they listen? No, the project is still being rammed through, dividing the community and in the process upsetting some relatives of the victims.

It is a sad outcome that only perpetuates the mistakes and heartbreak of the original disaster, thus denying the healing experience it needs to be.

David Trubridge is a designer from Hawke’s Bay.