Abstract:
Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions: In Light of Time is a film-essay in video-installation form. It associatively combines oral history with respect to the 1968-72 archaeological digs of Peter Coutts, documentation of the project of cataloguing material held in the archives of Southland Museum and Art Gallery Niho o te Taniwha from the middens Coutts excavated across Te Mimi o Tū Te Rakiwhānoa (Fiordland coastal and marine area) and imagery that focuses on Tamatea (Dusky Sound) and Te Puaitaha (Breaksea Sound) from a three-week visit Alex Monteith made in the winter of 2014. A particular emphasis for this exhibition is on discussions of fishing processes that arose in the presence of the composite and one-piece fishhooks. Recordings were made during the early conversations of the collection fishing tools between Kaumātua Stewart Bull (who has held the role of one of the Guardians of Fiordland’s Fisheries / Customary Representatives) and Ngāi Tahu archaeologists Atholl Anderson and Gerard O’Regan.