The Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library
Ecotones
Ecotones are areas of steep transition between ecological communities, ecosystems, and/or ecological regions along an environmental or other gradient. Ecotones occur at multiple spatial scales and range from natural ecotones between ecosystems and biomes to human-generated boundaries.(1)
The Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library houses a comprehensive collection of publications and files on relating to art and artists of Aotearoa, New Zealand . A family bequest funded the collection in memory of the late Angela Morton, a resident passionate about New Zealand art. The donors and library decided that the “collection of books could be called a living memorial – a specialist art collection for the future, for students and scholars.”
It was an exciting challenge to exhibit in a different type of space to the traditional white walls of a gallery, the lockable cabinets necessitated by the public nature of the area. To present a large-format watercolour (1.5 x 4m), in the absence of wall space, it was pinned around a freestanding screen, creating a walk-around three-dimensional painting. I used concertina notebooks to draw in elements of a visual narrative in watercolour and notes in pencil, aligning to the flow of time and water.
Focusing on observations and research I’ve been doing into the nearby Wairau stream, the exhibition includes a range of work in various media. Watercolours and concertina notebooks, historical documents and family photographs, lumen photographs made with detritus from the area, sediment samples, copper-plated natural items from the estuary and a PowerPoint presentation. The exhibition explores this ecosystem where urban and natural worlds meet, an area that embodies a steep transition between our modern, urban environment and natural ecologies.
See more about the project at Heritage et AL.
http://heritageetal.blogspot.com/search?q=Sonja+Drake
Ecotones at the Angela Morton Room closed early due to a lockdown & reopened in June 2022
Installation view
Concertina notebook, watercolour paint
Beach, Bird, watercolour paint on watercolour paper, 310 x 230mm
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Installation view, cabinet with watercolour studies
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1. Ecotones, an overview. accessed 22 November 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/ecotones