Neve considers the tourist, the interloper, the colonial agenda enacting its expectation and intention upon the land via the interruption of the whiteout. The view, the panorama, the pinnacle and other colonial ideas.
Here at the top, above it all, intending to look down - but instead, wishing to withdraw with as little overlaying of expectation as possible.
These places are not for people and a very privileged scenario enables anyone to be here. Sheer drops and unpredictable weather patterns, no sounds except the occasional thud of falling snow. Your own breath, your own footsteps, your own nose running. The whiteout, circumventing agenda, provides an opportunity to shift through the unpredictable and chance encounter, the opportunity to remain open to collaborate.What are you doing here and why? Our internalised realities that drive our actions and in-actions within the Capitalist structure we find impossible to escape.
These places exist with or without us, and they will be here when we are not, they look and listen to us as we may look and listen to them.
The Neve is the immediate layer of a lengthy process, part of Te Moeka o Tuawe (The Bed of Tuawe), a layering of time, compression as a cycle, like an oscillation.
The work is not linear in terms of the perception of time, the transciense of the moment is ever-present. The snow falls above and compresses down into the glacier pushing it forward once, but now the layers build from above and the underside melts and recedes. This work visually builds and recedes in its composition, the visibility comes and goes, you might know what is out there but it is not exactly discernible. It is not an enclosed format, the ambiguity of the composition parallels the process present in the glacier. The work is contingent of chance encounters - a complex network of unpredictable occurrences that can happen at any particular moment. If the circumstances are right, it could slip, it is ultimately precarious, like all moments.
——————————————————
Photos from a Neve white-out (Te Moeka o Tuawe/Weheka, Aotearoa), cut in and out set to an ambient analogue sound scape and field recordings from the experience. Field recordings of water dripping (being collected from the melting icicles on the outside of the cabin for drinking water), the crackling radio on the wall (the only form of communication at this altitude), the gas burner boiling water, ice cracking and snow drifts coming away.
Poor weather and the eventual white-out left us stuck on the Neve for 3 days. The loss of orientation, the visual drop off and the intense cold and quiet. The space was reduced to small sounds and detail, the possibilities of the environment were unable to be regulated. You were forced into staying put.