Transforming Topographies

Transforming Topographies

Elvon Young, Lars Jerlach, Monique Redmond, Dieneke Jansen and Emily O'Hara lead a team from AUT Spatial Design and Visual Arts exploring socio-cultural-politico ‘problematics’ within and around Auckland as part of the 5th Auckland Triennial at Auckland Art Gallery.

Held from Tuesday 2 July – Sunday 21 July the project encompassed a series of events over 21 days, with 80 participants and 32 projects

Transforming Topographies was envisaged as a space of mergence, debate and negotiation. A space continuously dismantled, repositioned and energised by groups and individuals in conversation within a fluid and open state of oscillation. As a group of thinkers, collaborators, makers and designers we intended to rethink the role of ‘the social’ and ‘the public’ as real spaces of continuous exchange and encounter that engenders our imagination and community values.

In assembling the schedule of events for Transforming Topographies, the Project Leaders developed a curatorial strategy, a diagrammatic system for grouping the projects; rocks, mist, firecrackers — designed to create a shifting platform of events and activity within The Lab. Rocks were the large-scale installation/ time-based projects that run for significant lengths of time, Mist were projects that occupied The Lab for short time frames or merged in and out of the space, and Firecrackers were one-off, one-day or pop-up events, often performative in nature. The aim was that the rocks, mist and firecrackers would merge and relate in interesting and unexpected forms.