Melissa Macleod lies across a flood-prone track in the Avon Heathcote Estuary, her body forming an inadequate temporary barrier. The track is close to where Melissa lives in New Brighton and over the last decade she has made several works relating to how the area was affected by the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes.

The extreme ground movement altered the structure of the land, leaving much of it increasingly vulnerable to flooding, a risk further heightened by climate change. Macleod’s solitary action is an expression of her frustration that a remedy has not been prioritised, and an acknowledgment of our collective human responsibility to protect the whenua.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )