Land Wars is a major project held at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in 2008 over several platforms.
Who has control over land, and who doesn't? What are the changing circumstances for land use?
These are some of the most pressing questions of our time. However, the battles over land in New Zealand today are fought through money and legislation, rather than the military battles of old. Presenting work by both international and local artists, the Land Wars exhibitions reveal the complex negotiations land is subject to, our anxieties and fears around its control, and various strategies of resistance.
Build, the second stage of Land Wars, is an exhibition exploring development, gentrification and squatting politics, urban sprawl and the tension between civic, commercial and personal interests. Including both local and international artists, Land Wars: Build takes the contemporary New Zealand situation as a starting point. Does the demise of the quarter acre section really threaten the Kiwi psyche? Who owns the beaches? What is a sustainable city? How and where do we want to live?
Land Wars: The Reader will be published in May 2008 to accompany the second exhibition in Land Wars: Build. Funding towards Land Wars was received from the Goethe-Institut, Embassy of the Federal Republic, Germany and PROGRAM, Berlin.
See part 1 of Land Wars: Shift here.