“When the Pākehā arrived, much of the peninsula was heavily forested with Podocarp. You can still see old fossilised tōtara stumps lying all around the tops of the hills. As I understand it, Christchurch was built off those forests.” —Tā Tipene O’Regan

In this work, Doris Lusk draws attention to the dead trees commonly seen around Horomaka Banks Peninsula, painting several above the settlement of Kawatea Okains Bay. The surrounding area is shown as ordered and controlled, divided into the individually owned parcels of land that are common for European-style sedentary farming. Both Māori and Pākehā burned forests for settlement – Aotearoa New Zealand’s forest cover had dropped from more than eighty percent to roughly fifty-three percent by 1840, and stands at just thirty-three percent today.

Pākehā ~ New Zealander of European descent

He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)