Cast and reformed from familiar, but often unnoticed objects, Louise Palmer’s recent installations suggest a reconsideration of the meanings and values we give to objects and places. In ALSO HER DAUGHTER, Palmer has transformed 24 bollards — 12 heritage bollards (cast by P & D. Duncan, Christchurch), and 12 park bollards (borrowed from the Christchurch City Council) — colour-matching them to a selection of camellias planted in 1993 as a living memorial to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Referencing the function of the bollard as something that demarcates areas of significance, Palmer has strategically placed these pieces of urban furniture around the perimeter of the Kate Sheppard Memorial Walk to draw attention to, and perhaps to protect, this somewhat out-of-the-way site.
Worn by the suffragettes and their supporters during the campaign for equal voting rights, the white camellia has special significance. And in 1993, a new species of white camellia was named after Kate Sheppard. Other species included in the garden bare poetic names including White Nun, Silver Tower, Swan Lake, while others appear quite incongruous, ‘Man Size’, for example. The power of naming, and its ability to shift meaning dramatically, runs through the installation. ALSO HER DAUGHTER refers to the inscription on Kate Sheppard’s grave, located in Addington cemetery. The peculiar, somewhat off-hand phrasing opens the door to think about all those who could be considered Sheppard’s daughters; a whakapapa of feminist belief, which stretches beyond Sheppard.
Palmer has responded to this, creating 24 plaques in the same colour range as the bollards and engraved with a unique typeface, John 1850 by designer Marina Vivas, based on the font used on the John Robert Godley statue in Cathedral Square. Roughly one half of the plaques comprises fragments of a personal narrative, while the other half pays homage to peers and those who have gone before; creating a genealogy of feminist influence for Palmer.
Acknowledgements: Harkness Bequest, School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury.
