Recloaking | Marie Porter

About the event

In Recloaking, ZAWAA 2024 Premier Award winner Marie Porter brings a sculptural consideration to the considerable undertaking of harvesting pine trees, ultimately intending to recloak 6.7 hectares of steep, rocky land in what will once again in time become mature native forest.

On Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula, on this tract of land that Porter cares for, there are few remnants of the original podocarp forest that once covered it. Post-settlement industry of Milling, burn offs and coverage of the hills and valleys in grass and livestock has wholly changed the environment of this area.

In the gallery, Porter houses a series of three sculptural forms within an atmosphere that suggests verdant native forest. Two of these, each a metre cubed, utilises the detritus of the pine harvesting process (‘slash’), and can be imagined as units of time, space and volume – all essential considerations in pine forestry. The third cube, a stand of the native white pine Kahikatea serves as an aspiration that biodiverse native forest will again cloak the denuded whenua.

Image: Marie Porter, Cube #1, 2025, pine tree slash, adhesive, screws, dressed pine, building paper, 1000mm x 1000mm x 1000mm