Fiona Jack and Ngarimu Blair

Kohimaramara, 2008

There are things I have not done. Things I have not thought. There are things I could do, things I should do. Why do I not do them? What am I afraid of? I am not afraid, I am lazy, I am embarrassed. I was born here but still what have I done to you? I care for you but I can't help myself, I can't stop. I know I will do it to you again. Where is my pride? My pride is misdirected. Can you help me find my way? Can I come to you like the day of old, can we sit together and talk? If you speak to me will I listen now. Can we look out to the yacht club and know it was once an island, an island that I cannot see. I feel loss. I feel lost. What have I done? I don't remember. How can I find my way when the path I traveled has grown into a city that does not know itself. Kohimaramara lost its Island and I took it made it into a road or was it the causeway? Or maybe it became part of the foundations of the Shortland street Post Office, I just can't remember. The things I wrote down then make no sense today. I knew nothing then as I know now. I once called you Sugarloaf, I guess that's because you looked like one. I once thought I knew what your name meant but at no time did I ask you. History is not white, I am, and as I am dependent on the written word for my history I become lost, and I have come to know of a lost island.


Text by Layla Rudneva-Mackay

Photos by Haruhiko Sameshima, 2008 and James D Richardson (courtesy Special Collections, Auckland City Libraries), 1901.

ARTSPACE uses the Langham Hotel’s billboard for contemporary art projects. The space provides an opportunity for the invited artist to work on a massive scale, measuring 22.5 x 4 metres. We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Langham Hotel, Omnigraphics, Billboard Solutions and Karangahape Road Business Association.