savethepoint.org.nz

On 21 November 2003 Nick Dryden set up a sculpture installation - The Windeaters I-V - on Te Raekaihau Point in opposition to the proposed construction of a Marine Education Centre and Aquarium on the point. The installation attracted considerable media attention and has helped provide a focus for the debate about the destruction of a significant landscape feature on Wellington's South Coast.

The sculptures later traveled to Kuaotunu where they were successfully exhibited along with works by Michael Smithers, Tom Mutch, Chris Charteris, Llew Summers and Gian MacGregor as part of the summer exhibition at Birds Nest Studio.

Artist's Statement "Who eats the wind has hungry heart" The Fallow Land, Robin Hyde, Persephone in Winter: Poems 1937

Confronted by yet another development on Wellington's south coast, Nick created a series of 8-foot high totara sculptures. Formed from fine old slabs that held up Government Buildings for over 100 years the salt-stained piles were a perfect material for honing and shaping into the windeaters.

These sharp edged sentinels stand in defiance of the natural elements and man made forces that constantly assail the rugged, windswept coastal headland near where Nick lives - Te Raekaihau Point - which translates as 'he who eats the wind'.

Inspired by a Cycladic obsidian blade knapped on Tinos 6000 years ago, each sculpture represents the tools of colonisation - the axe, war-club, saw, blade and hook. Traditional symbols of exploitation and dominance these tools are reborn as the guardians repelling the new wave of concrete colonists that are creeping over our precious coast in the name of eco-tourism.

Artist's Statement

Wellington's south coast has been identified by Wellington City Council as a 'product' to be packaged and sold to tourists in the hope that they will stay one night longer in Wellington. To this end they are promoting and partially funding a series of 'attractions' between Lyall Bay and Island Bay. These attractions include:

• the sinking of a warship off Tapu Te Ranga Island
• the building of an artificial surf reef at Lyall Bay
• and the construction of their 'branding icon', a five storey fish zoo at Te Raekaihau Point.

Rocky promontories or our coastal waters are merely wastelands. Like our mangrove swamps and wetlands over the last 150 years, these empty places on our coast are seen as dumping grounds - places to be 'filled in'' and built on. Their ecological and natural features have no intrinsic values - they are ripe for exploitation. As Arnold Turner states;

"The loss of unspoiled coastal land to subdivision and development is a live issue again � It seems that over a period of 40 years, the "wheel has turned full circle". The community is facing renewed pressures on our coastal land due to changes in the national and international economies and to the marked increase in private wealth..." Arnold R. Turner CMG

Arnold Turner was former Chairman of the Auckland Regional Authority's Regional Parks Committee from 1963 to 1968. In 1970 he was appointed Chairman of the No. 1 Town and Country Planning Appeal Board. He retired from judicial office in 1987, at a time when he was holding the position of Principal Planning Judge. Refer to www.eds.org.nz

The Eco Trap, constructed from bull kelp washed up on the south coast after recent storms, with gold painted paua as the bait, is a symbolic representation of the Council's intentions to entice the tourist to spend more at the expense of the natural environment. The hand reaching for the pauas, lured by the glint of gold, is ensnared; unable to release itself from the developers' shackles to discover the natural delights the coast has to offer.

Nick Dryden, February 2004

The Eco Trap and Windeaters III and V are currently on exhibition at McCormack Studio and Gallery, 355 The Parade, Island Bay until 5 March 2004