The impetus for Richard Frater’s expansive Living Cities project was seeded in a 2011 exhibition series at the Adam Art Gallery titled In Camera. Curated by former Adam Art Gallery Curator Laura Preston, Frater’s contribution to this earlier series involved taking up residence in Wellington and over the course of a month developing work in situ in response to natural and planned features of the city.

Frater’s Living Cities project developed out of his ongoing conversations with Preston. In this instance he sought out a perceptual space for his suite of site responsive artworks which was analogous to the experience of cinematic real-time. Spanning both the Adam’s Kirk Gallery and an offsite location, Frater orchestrated a chain of discrete scenarios for viewing his sculptures as well as an architectural intervention and a collaborative sonic work developed with sound artist Richard Francis. Each of these bodies of work translated tropes of film into objects and situations—the aperture of a lens, diegetic/non-diegetic sound, the chemical makeup of celluloid and so forth—putting into play a kind of expanded notion of cinema which, with the exception of the online ‘trailer’ for this exhibition, was realised without the use of a camera.

A connecting thread within these works was Frater’s concern with the ecological makeup and built environment of Wellington. Frater had been researching Zealandia, the Karori wildlife sanctuary with a ‘500 year vision’ to restore local bush to its pre-human conditions. These major rejuvenation efforts have restored the populations of the spotted kiwi, hihi and tuatara and Frater’s particular interest was their work with the kaka, the native parrot that was successfully reintroduced into the region in 2001.

The kaka operates as the invisible ‘protagonist’ in these works and each of the objects in the exhibition was connected by the plight of this mischievous bird. The artist assembled lead roofing nails which kaka gnaw at, causing contamination to young chicks, and exhibited a nail gun as an icon of the twentieth-century suburban sprawl which has permanently altered the kaka’s habitat. This network of objects, combined with the artist’s deft reworking of the architectural features of the gallery to frame a view towards the city, unearthed the hostile relationship between the natural wildlife and contemporary urban developments that so rapidly undermine a delicate ecosystem thousands of years in the making.

Richard Frater is a New Zealand-born, Berlin-based artist. He studied at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, graduating with a Postgraduate Diploma in 2006, and has a MFA from the Glasgow School of Art (2012). His works have been included in exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia and Germany. He is represented by Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington.

The collaborative sound installation by Richard Frater and Richard Francis was viewable at an offsite location a short walking distance from the gallery.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of Chartwell Trust in the realisation of this project.

This exhibition was staged concurrently with Drawing Is/Not Building.