Pacific pavilion at Venice Biennale pushed

Transcript

A New Zealand arts academic is pushing for a pan-Pacific pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale, where the region could pool resources to showcase its art.

A creative arts lecturer at Massey University, Simon Mark, says it is too hard and too expensive for many Pacific nations to be represented there.

He says if the Pacific worked together, it could secure a good spot.

SIMON MARK: The general concept is that you have a place in Venice as part of the Venice Biennale that is a pan-Pacific pavilion, so it's not just specifically about one country like New Zealand but it actually encompasses the membership of the Pacific.

LYNN FREEMAN: Well when I read this, because I was in Venice this year, and I was trying to think of what I had seen of pan-Pacific and there was Tuvalu, which I stumbled across. I mean I didn't see by any means everything there but I think that was it in terms of genuine Pacific work. And I am just wondering if it just too hard, too expensive for a lot of Pacific nations to be represented there.

SM: Well I am absolutely sure it is, I mean it is a big undertaking. I have thought about whether or not you would want to have the New Zealand pavilion replaced by this. But I don't think that's a very good idea. You'd probably want the Pacific pavilion to be running parallel to, or alongside, or addition to the New Zealand pavilion. But I do think that it would be useful if there was enough support for the idea within the Pacific, and within the community of Pacific artists that New Zealand could take quite a powerful lead in helping make it happen or at least helping get the dialogue underway.

LF: Could this somehow come as part of the aid or the cultural ties that we have with the nations? I mean as well as advice, do you think New Zealand would have to help out with the cold hard cash?

SM: Yes, I do. From my understanding of NZ's aid programme it would fit very comfortably within that. I know that the focus under the current aid programme is pretty much on economic development, but it's not exclusively on economic development.

LF: But what's in it for the Pacific?

SM: Pacific nations when they hear this idea might in fact say that this is actually isn't a priority for us. We've got too many things on our plate at the moment to do this. But there would be a couple of aspects to this. One would be that this sort of collaborative arrangement is beneficial to those who are involved in it. Through states or individual artists, through dialogue that occurs within it. And there's obviously the bringing to the fore this place called the Pacific at the world's leading contemporary art biennale. And I think that in itself has its own benefits as a profile raising of issues, a profile raising of just the brilliance of art practices in the Pacific. Those sort of benefits as well, I think.

LF: Well certainly, the exhibition representing Tuvalu had a very strong climate change theme to it - it was just a series of steaming pools really. And you just got a sense that the water was overtaking everything else. You just got a sense that the water was overtaking everything else. You know, it was very simple, but a very effective exhibition. The other issue here I guess is that there are a lot of Pacific Island nations, so it's how you share the love. Would you, and it's every two years of course, highlight one Pacific nation every two years or try and get a feeling for the diversity within the Pacific in one hit?

SM: Well I prefer the second myself. But I think that it's kind of like having an empty canvas in a way. And you're offering the Pacific community of nations to fill the canvas in a way that they think is most appropriate.