The Protest

This photo was taken by Andrew Ross last time we had Mayoral elections in this town. I believe the message in the graffiti is suggesting that (then as now) Mayor Kerry Prendergast doesn't really give two hoots about Wellington. That is only my reading of it however.

It's a nice work by Mr. Ross. However, for reasons we're not too sure about the council people refused to let it be included in his hang for IntensCITY.

The work in Intens CITY was supposed to be pointed, political, contentious, and controversial. Sadly the powers that be weren't too happy for that to be the case so close to elections.

A complete body of work by Andy Morley-Hall was also refused, despite the best efforts of our council advocate.

Andy shot all these in London. The intention was to have them up in Garrett St, next door to the newly (horribly) revamped Glover Park. Why? Because Glover Park was/is renowned as a place where Wellington's homeless congregated. See here and here for more info, here for the council side (I especially like the euphemistic 4th paragraph), and here for a related censorship of public art.

Beautiful and sad photos by Andy. They would have looked so good in Garrett Street. Thanks bloody Mayoral elections. Thanks for censoring our Art.

(For the sake of fairness I should say that word about Andy's work was that if it wasn't for the elections we would have seen it up in Garrett St.)

And, in a related story, another curatorial project I'm involved in with the council (one I've also kept fairly quiet about) has also been hit by election issues. This time the revamp of a park has been delayed due, we have been told, to the fact that they (someone!) didn't want work happening during the election period in case it swayed voters. Crikey, sounds to me like someone out there is just a mite paranoid.