Ella Jones from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington School of Architecture is a finalist for her project 'Drawing Ground'.
Project description
Aotearoa now recognises natural, non-human entities, such as Te Urewera Whanganui Awa and Taranaki Maunga, as having personhood. The motivation of this work is to understand my relationship to the living, breathing ground; to draw out architecture through a collaboration between me and the ground as a person.
As Pākehā in Aotearoa, this relationship feels turbulent as I don’t whakapapa to a particular soil. Through drawing, the relationship is explored to reveal its shifting currents, which are infused in graphite on paper. The architecture that results captures a journey of belonging, entangled relations and identity.
This ongoing project with abstract drawing explores connections between the ground and the body, culminating in the re-sketching of the historic Dominion Museum building in Wellington. The building’s solidity is dissolved and reimagined through intense, turbulent sketches, emergent from thinking about the ground beneath the building.
Jury citation
Through sketched architecture, this series draws out the complexities of a Pākehā relationship to the earth, figuratively mining that journey for meaning, while digging into belonging and identity.
Ella perceives the abstract black-and-white architecture drawings as a collaboration between herself and the earth. Drawing is used as a medium to think through, experiment and map out the turbulent relationship with the ground, culminating in the reimagining of the Dominion Museum, a heritage commercial building. With its architectural origins rooted in the Chicago-inspired style, the building is not indigenous to place and by dissolving its solidity, gravitas is given over to the ground beneath.
Rethinking the museum is both courageous and provocative. Removing its prominence in the landscape lends visibility to the earth as a living entity. Ella’s relationship to her subject has been beautifully expressed and delivered with authenticity. Her sketched observations are ethereal, intense and otherworldly.
