Alyce Charlesworth, Curator
From the creative mind of curator Carrie de Hennezel comes a continental summer treat. The brief from Kiwi North director, Laurel Belworthy was “interactive, experimental and disruptive” and what has been delivered will allow evolution of these concepts to happen at the hands of our visitors.
Once a part of Gondwana (it has even been geologically linked to the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia), Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia is the world’s 8th and smallest continent. Extending roughly 4300 km and spanning nearly 39° of latitude, Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia is six times bigger than Madagascar, and about the same area as greater India. Today, 94% of the continent remains submerged beneath the ocean’s surface. Evidence for the continent had been building over many decades before GNS Science-led research put the continent of Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia officially on the world map. With collaboration from GNS Science our slice of this map representing Te Tai Tokerau has been installed within the Mim Ringer Gallery and the map legend provides the key to the paint by numbers.
The map sequence is a visual journey, meticulously charting the evolution of Te Riu-a-Māui / Zealandia over 100 million years, capturing the continents precise latitudinal and longitudinal transitions as it slowly detached from the Gondwana supercontinent to become the land beneath our feet today. Visitors match the number of the selected geological feature from the map legend (for example 13. Kerikeri Group- Quartenary Basalt) with the colour of a paint pen and a number on the map to ‘paint by numbers’ at a large scale. While the paint by numbers is designed for ages 7 and up, there are colouring activities and a geological glossary translated for young minds to digest the information and be involved with the exhibition too.
Challenging Kiwi North’s traditional heritage landscape, this exhibition commands visitors to participate in a geological tapestry. Colours and shapes will represent a terrain etched with intricate fault lines, evidence of the constant movement of tectonic plates that have sculpted, contorted, elevated and occasionally submerged parts of the region. Places of intense volcanic activity, where molten rock and fire shaped the landscape and volcanoes erupted with great force. Broad areas of deep-sea sedimentary rock indicate times when Northland was underwater, influenced by the deep reaches of ancient seas. And dune formations and swamp deposits highlighting ongoing geological changes that continue to shape the region and what it will become.
