B.
Care Package (Part 2)
Behind the scenes
So yesterday I wrote how the Christchurch Art Gallery had just received a bodacious post-quake care package, which looks like this.
Suspense kit.
Since then gallery's server has been crackling with hundreds of guesses (well, at least five) about what the black box contains. A thrilling assortment of free hand-sanitiser products? The new family-size tent in which the Christchurch Art Gallery will henceforth be mounting all its exhibition? Two hundred unreadable and unsellable monographs on the recent works of Uttër Drech?
Wrong, wrong, and (sorry Uttër) wrong again. Open the box and here's what's inside.
Roadkill?
To get the full effect, however, you really need to attach that thing to this thing....
Suspense kit activation unit
And hello!
Michael Parekowhai, Cosmo, 2006
It's Michael Parekowhai's Cosmo and it's a gift to Christchurch Art Gallery from Jim Barr and Mary Barr. They wanted to contribute something big and joyous to our post-quake reopening celebrations early next year, and they sure have. It's nice – it's very nice – to know people are thinking of us down here in Christchurch.
Related
Collection
Michael Parekowhai Cosmo McMurtry
Some characters aren’t quite what they seem, no matter how charming. Michael Parekōwhai’s Cosmo McMurtry is a noxious pest in the guise of a Disney-worthy bunny. Even his doe-eyed, cutesy appearance can’t quite erase our awareness of the toll his endlessly multiplying relatives have taken on Aotearoa New Zealand’s natural environment. It’s a short hop from one introduced, invasive species to the next, which leads us to an uncomfortable question: is Cosmo a rabbit-shaped personification of colonisation?
(Dummies & Doppelgängers, 2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025)