Dunedin Dream Brokerage: Bubbles
Sharing the upside of lockdown
Creative people are an essential part of our community. Dunedin Dream Brokerage aims to support the creative community here in Ōtepoti and to reinvigorate our underutilised urban spaces. But while we were unable to activate vacant spaces in our CBD, we took our efforts to the suburbs.
Dunedin Dream Brokerage Bubbles was a hyper local pop-up project featuring the work of Dunedin artists, designers and writers in the windows of local shops. With the partnership of generous local organisations, Dunedin Dream Brokerage Bubbles connected the art community and local businesses, and asked us all to reflect on the ‘upside of the lockdown’. What connects us during this shared experience? What makes our neighbourhoods vibrant?
Suburbs
Port Chalmers
North East Valley
South Dunedin
Artworks
The Panty Bag Collective, Port Chalmers
Hosted by Pea Sea Art Gallery
The “ Panty Bag Collective” represents collaboration between four women artists, with crafternoon teas, the conception of several books, a Sketchbook Project, and exhibition. We paint, draw, print, sew, construct, collage and create collaborative humorous artworks. During lockdown we kept our tradition of sharing via the letterbox, a Zoom crafternoon tea and making in our own bubbles. Our altered image is from pages in a girls 1975 Annual called Diana.
Libbi Caskey, Port Chalmers
Hosted by Union Co Cafe
Rakiriri and The Back Beach Heron
Back Beach was the most amazing resource during lockdown. WIthout cars zooming past it was the perfect place for families to escape to. Kids learnt to ride bikes, adults walked and waved, dogs never looked happier. With it at our doorstep, lockdown was just that little bit easier.
Justine Pierre, Port Chalmers
Hosted by Box of Birds
Blackout Poetry (with closeups of each poem)
Inspired by Austin Kleon and the zine movement, each poem seeks to capture a moment or a feeling of lockdown.
Hayley Rata Heyes, Caversham
Hosted by antidote South
Lockdown saw a celebration of our essential workers: cleaners, supermarket staff, carers, maintenance & tradespeople. My oil painting echoes this with an essential worker front & centre, drawing your eye with their hi-vis. They are removing old trees from Kings High School. It’s a small figure though, towered over by tall trees; a gentle reminder that this centring is precarious & could be forgotten again when the crisis subsides.
Simon White,
Tomahawk
Hosted by antidote Macandrew
During a time when the country was at level 4 lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus, I decided to take a recording of the moment the sun broke the horizon every day during the time the country was in lockdown. I am fortunate to live at the beach and the view is looking South into the Pacific from Tomahawk Beach, Dunedin. Each image was made from the exact same geographical location, (45°54′25″S 170°32′42″E) during the moment of dawn everyday. Using a 120 second exposure I selected 19 images from the study to establish this project.
Eve McCoy, South Dunedin
Hosted by Nanking Palace
This work is done with acrylic paints of gold and silver over a blank white canvass. Eve is an artist who attends Studio2 an art space for people with disabilities in south dunedin.
Julia Young, South Dunedin
Hosted by Clare Curran’s office
Luca is an upside of the lockdown cause he has come quite a long way and given me a lot of happiness as he arried during the lockdown' Julia.
Julia is an artist who attends Studio2 in South Dunedin and has soft toy lemurs who help her to communicate, she also runs a radio show on OAR called the positivity show where the lemurs are announcers.
I spent the first two weeks of lockdown at home, sitting at my table surrounded by plants and looking out over the Oval. It was a scary time but my plants, my window and all the dogs I saw walking past brought me comfort and peace. This work began in level 4 when I only had access to what I had at home so I have used Indian ink and Stormy Grey ink. There is still joy and hope to be had even if it all seems grey and bleak. All the dogs in this image have been seen from my window, I call it ‘Mutts of Maitland”
L Hinds, North East Valley
Hosted by antidote
During the rāhui, daytimes in North East Valley have a dream-like quality. Sleep has become a place of creativity and garishness; and many have found that their dreams have been more vivid than usual.
This artwork is impish, filmic, and conspicuous. I aimed to transform the vividness and absurdity of these dreams, and make some sense of their meaning within the boundaries of my bubble.
Liz Abbott, Ōpoho
Hosted by Blacks Road Grocer
Signal Hill Road 2.5.20 11.54pm
Here’s a an oil sketch from a late lockdown walk along Signal Hill road by the old four square shop - the absence of traffic has been a real upside of lockdown for me which has caused me to see familiar places in a new way. Perhaps the loose marks reflect the feeling of being released from home for some much needed exercise and freedom!
Emmellee Rose, Pine Hill
Hosted by Bloomin’ Gorgeous
With this work, I have used paper and fabric to produce art showing humanity’s impact on the earth. ‘Urban Communities’ is both spontaneous and practiced, methodical, but not perfect. Imperfection is what makes us human, hence the work is cut by hand. Intricate patterns demonstrate the interconnectedness between ourselves and our communities in the urban environment. The work demonstrates how we are all in our own bubbles, separate yet together.
Tom Garden, North East Valley
Hosted by Gardens New World
I have had a lot of spare time to paint lately. I try to make lemonade out of lemons so in this lockdown I decided to work on my online presence as a digital artist. I set up a Twitch stream and painted this for the 4.5 viewers who attended.
Project Partner
The beautiful artworks you saw popping up around Dunedin were printed by our Project Partner, Dunedin Print Ltd.
Dunedin Print is a local, family owned and operated company established in 1934.
Visit their website to find out more
Neighbourhood partners
Our North East Valley neighbourhood partner was Te Kura Matatini ki Otago, Otago Polytechnic. Otago Polytechnic has a long and rich artistic history, going back as far as 1870, with the opening of the Dunedin School of Art.
Visit their website here to learn more
Our South Dunedin neighbourhood partners were Te Kāika and Tiaki Taoka.
Te Kāika uses a collaborative and integrative approach, to provide our Dunedin Community with access to high quality and affordable wrap-around services.
Tiaki Taoka is is the Ngāi Tahu mandated whānau care service which is being developed in partnership with the community. Focused around the needs of Māori, Pasifika, Low Income families and other people that experience barriers to primary care, all Te Kāika clinics are open to everyone and responsive to the wider Dunedin community.
Where could you find #DDBBubbles artworks?
About us
Dunedin Dream Brokerage is a local group who broker the temporary occupation of underutilised urban and retail environments for creative projects.
With thanks to
Dunedin Print, The Otago Chamber of Commerce, The Dunedin City Council, The Otago Polytechnic, Craig Scott, Leoni Schmidt, Martin Kean, Marama Smyth, Brendan Murray, Justin Spiers, Lorealle Lam, and Christopher Wilson.