From Where I Stand
2013
The city of Christchurch, New Zealand was devastated by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, just 5km deep, at 12.51pm on the 22nd of February, 2011. At the time of the earthquake, Christchurch was New Zealand’s second-largest city, home to over 300,000 people. Unlike other New Zealand cities such as Napier and Wellington, Christchurch was not thought to be close to any active fault lines, the exception being the Alpine Fault, which runs through the middle of the South Island. The effects of the quake were enormous. Hundreds of buildings were rendered unsafe and subsequently demolished; the entire Central Business District was cordoned off for 18 months and 185 people were killed. It was one of the deadliest peacetime disasters in New Zealand’s history and has come to define and determine how the city functions economically and socially.
As Christchurch is rebuilt, the redevelopment and planning of the new city centre must honour it’s built and cultural history. Designed along the River Avon with Christ Church Cathedral at it’s heart, Christchurch was formed in the English style. Post earthquake, many of the historical buildings that have come to define the city were impractical to repair. Many people have fought to save some of the architecture of historic significance, with insurance and logistic issues making their efforts mostly unsuccessful.
On the 30th of July, 2012 the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) and the Christchurch City Council released The Blueprint Plan involving Anchor projects and Precincts throughout the framework for a new Central City. The plan includes a health precinct near the justice and emergency services precinct, a metro sports facility and stadium as well as innovation, performing arts and retail precincts. The green ‘Frame’ has become a temporary part of this plan, providing a green gateway to the city connecting the Garden City’s identifying Hagley Park with the Avon River, spanning many of these areas. The frame and walkways, surrounding the south and east of the CBD, act as boundaries that mark this once busy downtown commercial and residential area, while also serving as reminders of all that was lost during the natural disaster through memorial sites and cultural centres. What this plan doesn’t directly elude to, is the anticipation of the land acquired for the green frame being able to be used commercially again within the next decade. This is causing major controversy for businesses and landowners, who are being forced by the Govenrment off land for below market value, land which could one day in the near future be back up for sale for double or triple what they’ve been acquired for.
This project seeks to explore the disparity between the uniquely subjective experiences of being in a disaster affected place and representing this through photography. From Where I Stand shows the evolving Christchurch landscape in a diptych style where a single frame of a scene which is still familiar of the ‘old’ city is put into context alongside a scene of rebuild or demolition. These accustomed scenes involve aspects of Christchurch which couldn’t be shaken- the Avon river, the Port Hills, the aging trees, which give a glimpse of the important parts of the loved city that still remain. It reinforces memory, showing how with a cock of the head south, away from the injured Cathedral in the Square, the river that we grew up eating ice-cream by is ever-flowing. The focus of these pieces is on pre-existing green spaces in the city, moving toward those that are destined to be ‘green’ as part of the city’s blue-print plan. These photographs elude more to the invisible structures that make up a city- such as the social and cultural outlines of a place, and especially its history, all of which influence how a city functions. The work uses specific framing devices, often the symbolic familiar features as compositional device to highlight the journey through the city that the earthquake has taken. It is the setting sun, the reflection of the water, the lack of human activity which become stilled through the act of photographing and therefore begin to offer something more. The psychology of place lends us hope that the more the rebuild progresses, the more of these glimpses we will get. Ultimately, this project uses photography to demonstrate the transition from what was, what remains, and towards what Christchurch city is yet to become.