Palisade

A collaboration between Ngati Whatua O Orakei, Fiona Jack, New Artland and community volunteers. Manuka, rope, steel. 100 metres long. Okahu Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, 2008.

In May 1943 a palisade fence was built by volunteers around the Ngati Whatua O Orakei papakainga (the traditional maori village of the Ngati Whatua people of Orakei) in Okahu Bay on Auckland’s waterfront. It was built in an attempt to regain some privacy and maintain a sense of community in the face of encroaching colonial urbanisation which was exacerbated by the construction of a major roadway through the village that separated the main living areas from the sea. Less than ten years after the palisade was built the village was burnt to the ground and the inhabitants evicted with no compensation or purchase agreement offered at that time.
In April 2008 Ngati Whatua O Orakei, Fiona Jack and New Artland organised a group of volunteers to reconstruct this palisade using similar materials and techniques. The palisade fence was installed in the same position as the original fence (now a public park alongside the roadway) for three months. It was then dismantled into sections that are now being used as a community resource for events throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

The documentary programme made about the Palisade project for Television New Zealand’s New Artland series can be viewed online at http://tvnzondemand.co.nz (within New Zealand only).

Wood Gathering

Ngai Tai ki Umupuia Marae, Ngai Tai offered manuka to the project as a koha. Volunteers from Umupuia and Auckland worked for a day chopping trees out of the forest; gathering and loading over 2000 stakes into a truck, and unloading the stakes into a pile in Okahu bay.

Building weekend

Friday 18th April: Powhiri/welcome to Orakei Marae for the project volunteers. After the powhiri there was a shared meal, a korero from Ngarimu Blair about the history of Ngati Whatua, and an overnight stay on the marae.

Sat 19th April: Karakia at 7 in the morning before we began constructing the palisade in one day. Volunteers worked from 7am until dark.

Whakawaatea

Sunday 20th April: 9.45am Whakawaatea – blessing & opening of the palisade, Okahu Bay Reserve

Additional building

The building weekend produced a palisade fence of approximately 70 metres long. To reach the original length of 100 metres there was a second building day at Orakei marae with volunteers and community service workers on periodic detention.

Break: Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth

Sections of the palisade fence (that were made in portable sections for continued use by the community) and a video of volunteers speaking about their involvement in the project, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, 2008

• About
• fiona
• Projects (chronological)
  • Living Halls
    • facade photos
    • drawings
    • list of halls
  • My Fellow Citizens
  • Election Day
  • Kohimaramara
  • Palisade
  • General Assembly
  • TAXI
  • Future Reminders of an Imperfect Past
  • The Rise and Fall of the Inland Empire
  • After The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy
  • Matucana 100. Untitled, 8 Maps
  • 75 Cuban Revolutions
  • Undo what is riveted. see river
  • A402
  • Missing Peoples
  • Please Take One
  • Nothing