Chartwell Notes

"Waikumete is New Zealand’s biggest cemetery. The artist’s father, Ian Scott, was a New Zealand artist who grew up nearby, and the cemetery became one of his favourite places. He often painted there as a youth and is buried nearby. Prior to colonial settlement, most of the surrounding Sunnyvale area was forested with kauri but now only a small percentage of kauri forest remains and it is threatened with dieback. The image shows an extensive development at the cemetery’s edge resulting from West Auckland’s recently rezoned use of land for housing” - Ron Brownson, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

"My photographs reflect on the built environment, nature, and history, as a way to consider our collective dreams, and the destructive legacy of colonisation and empire on which they were built. We are on a planet with finite resources, so fighting climate change requires rethinking an ideology of endless growth..."

"...Suburbs are inherently problematic: consuming more resources, destroying more natural habitat, perpetuating an individualistic culture, with higher rates of loneliness and depression. Most problematic, by being dependant on cars, they are part of the petrochemical economy and its machinations – from regime changes to wars for oil. Understanding the scientific consensus on the urgency of climate change action, but seeing the world continue to hurl finite resources at a 1960s hallucination of suburban utopia and infinite consumption, can feel hopeless.” - Chris Corson-Scott, 2020.