In 2021, Aotearoa/NZ artist Phil Dadson was invited by World Weather Network (Art Angel UK) and Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (Curator, Janine Randerson) to respond to the global climate emergency with an art project.
Dadson’s concept was to create a choir of aeolian (wind) harps across climate challenged locations within Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, the Polynesian Pacific.
In early 2022 the Breath of Weather Collective was formed, comprised of participants in eight South Pacific coastal locations affected by extreme weather. In combination with DIY wind-harp basics supplied by Dadson, participants at each location constructed free-standing outdoor aeolian instruments from local materials.
Each Aeolian harp acts as a metaphorical body responding to the variables of weather—silent when still, harmonious when calm, dissonant when wild. The windharps captured harmonic, wind—song records of changing daily and seasonal conditions, recorded in video and sound on smartphones throughout a one year solstice to solstice period (2022–2023). The work conceptually embraces coastal communities worldwide affected by climate change within an evocative, present-time capsule of intensifying winds and inundating shorelines. A video/sound installation of the project was installed in the exhibition Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear, Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, 2023.
Collaborating participants and Te Moana Nui a Kiwa locations:
· Uili Lousi & Kasimea Sika (Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga)
· Maina Vai & whānau (Upolu, Samoa)
· Pasha Clothier (Parihaka/Taranaki, Aotearoa)
· James McCarthy (Whakatane, Aotearoa)
· Phil Dadson (Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa)
· Dianne Reefman & Ricks Terstappen (Haumoana, Aotearoa)
· Kelvin Passfield & Paris Tutty (Rarotonga, Cook Is)
· Mark & Ahi Cross (Liku, Island of Niue)
