The Interior by Sorawit Songsataya for SCAPE Public Art Season 2020
IMAGE: Sorawit Songsataya, The Interior, 2020. Image courtesy of Sorawit Songsataya and SCAPE Public Art. Photo by Jade Cavalcante.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
In The Interior, a moa (Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest flightless bird), lies surrounded by a group of native and endemic bird species; some extinct like the moa, others endangered. Their minimal forms are distinctly polished and abstracted by the process of digital modelling, by casting and carving, yet their life-size offers a fantastical experience of lands once richly populated by avian life.
By titling his work The Interior, Sorawit Songsataya seeks to invert our relationship with non-human species. He reminds us of humanity’s often fraught relationship with the natural world, which is typically defined by ‘the outside’ or by remoteness. It is these oppositions in language and culture that the artist explores, drawing together an artificial community under the canopy of The Arts Centre.
Prompted by the recent discovery of moa footprints in the Maniototo, Songsataya also refers to the 1907 painting by Trevor Lloyd, Te Tangi o Te Moa, in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, in which a cluster of forest birds bid farewell to the ‘last moa’. The birds in The Interior are intended to reflect the spectrum of our relationship with the natural world, from the ornamental to a desire for intimacy and knowledge.
In the context of SCAPE’s Season 2020 theme, Secrets and Lies, The Interior prompts us to think about the stories and narratives told by our institutions and how they are told; specifically, what forms of knowledge are privileged over others? Moa skeletons are scattered in museums throughout the country; it is a mythic creature seen but never known – central to the imagination of Aotearoa New Zealand, and synonymous with extinction, giving rise to the phrase, “to go the way of the moa.”. By focusing on objects, ‘objective knowledge’, and the moa’s disappearance – or rather its remains – a great deal of the moa’s story is ignored. However, recent interdisciplinary research has explored the connection between language, culture, and biodiversity. Whakataukī reference the significance of the moa practically, symbolically, and ecologically*. The Interior, which is unapologetically emotive, also privileges different kinds of experiential knowledge, encouraging a more complex understanding of our environment.
The Interior was located at the rear of Market Square within The Arts Centre, to the side of The Fudge Cottage. It was first shown at Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki, from 23 November 2019 to 27 October 2020. The artwork was commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and supported by the Chartwell Trust and the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery.
*New research gives insight into the lives of tupuna here.
