Mokopuna: Place in isolation

This past weekend I booked passage on one of the ferries specially arranged to cruise past the Mokopuna Island Project, a temporary art installation by Mike Ting and located on the island of the same name.  Mokopuna Island is a small outcropping of volcanic rock, roughly 200 metres by 80 metres in size, situated adjacent and to the north of Matiu/Somes Island in the middle of Wellington Harbour.

Mokopuna would not likely be well known, as there are many such small uninhabited volcanic bits sticking out of the local waters, were it not for a short-term resident just over 100 years ago.  In July 1903 Kim Lee, a Chinese immigrant to Wellington, having been (mis-) diagnosed with leprosy, was sent to Matiu/Somes Island, which owing to its geographic isolation, served as a quarantine station.  Due to the nature of his supposed illness, the fears and prejudices of the others quarantined with him and his own laments regarding his fate, Lee was subsequently banished to Mokopuna Island, an even more isolated location, across 50 metres of water from the northern tip of Matiu/Somes.

Kim Lee lived a solitary and difficult existence on this piece of rock for just a matter of months, until his death there in March 1904.  Some have speculated he died of a broken heart, for he had just prior to his death learned of the passing of his mother in China, who it is believed took her own life, having received reports of what she understood to be her son’s lifelong quarantine in far-away New Zealand.  Lee had indicated that it was the hope of getting well and saving up to visit his mother in China that kept him alive through his ordeal on Mokopuna.

…I know that I won’t die here, that when I get away from this place, I’ll go back to the village where the tower watches over the carp ponds, and I’ll see my mother again.

While enduring his solitude, Kim Lee suffered the trials of the small, exposed island, subject to the wind, rain and cold that is common to the area much of the year.  The spartan and diminutive wooden hut that was his home was not adequate for such conditions and so he often slept in a small cave near the shore, which he indicated sometimes flooded at high tide.

Food and supplies were carried to him on a rowboat by the local lighthouse keeper, or during rough weather transferred via a zip line strung across the stretch of water between Matiu/Somes and Mokopuna.  Other than that lighthouse keep, Lee’s only human contact was with Dr. Valintine, a local physician who had been assigned to monitor Lee’s condition with weekly visits to Mokopuna.

Kim Lee’s tragic story served as backdrop and impetus for the project by Mike Ting, to explore themes of “isolation, vulnerability and social responsibility in New Zealand’s post-1980s socio-political context.” Those like myself wishing to experience this temporary art installation, the nature of which was not revealed prior to the day, were taken to Mokopuna on a harbour ferry. For these special sailings the return to Wellington from Days Bay passed to the north of Matiu/Somes, rather than along the customary southern route.

The day was wet, windy and particularly grey, with clouds hovering low over the water obscuring any view of coastline while we were in the middle of the harbour. With what I did know of Kim Lee’s story at the time, it seemed a fitting atmosphere in which to experience an artistic homage to such a heart-rending history. The combination of the close weather and uncertainty about just what we were to experience, created a mood of uneasy anticipation on board the ferry as we made our slow approach to Mokopuna.

Close in on the east side of the island, as the engines were powered down, we were sheltered from the prevailing winds and a calm quiet engulfed our vessel. In this silence, a single blast from the ferry’s horn announced our arrival as if to alert the ghost of Kim Lee himself. From the top deck we all scanned the shoreline, looking for some sign of this installation, the artist himself perhaps, but there was nothing – just the DOC sign warning away potential landings on the protected island and a landscape of scrub brush and gnarled volcanic rock, punctuated here and there with arches and small caves.

The silence and lack of obvious activity continued for some time it seemed when there arose from an unseen source on the island a loud and maniacal laugh that in the still, carried far across the water. It repeated multiple times, over the course of several minutes, its source never revealed. Surely this was meant to represent the voice of Lee and its form suggested a level of lunacy. Perhaps the oppressive isolation on this rock in the harbour had turned his mind and he had succumbed to madness.

There was nothing else but that laugh. No explanation, no visual clues, no tangible human forms with which to give the artistic expression context. But in its singularity, its clarity across the calm and confined waters alongside Mokopuna, that choice of auditory presentation was powerfully felt. Its unexpectedness too, arising without warning from somewhere within the bush along the shoreline, added to its effectiveness.

Then as suddenly as it had started the mournful laughter stopped, the ferry engines were powered up and we began the trip back to Wellington. As we rounded the northern point of Mokopuna Island, the wet wind hit those of us on the upper deck as a gale and we were left in that drastically changed environment to mull over what we had just experienced.

 

After docking back at Queen’s Wharf, each of us disembarking from the ferry was presented with a Mokopuna Island Project brochure, which in addition to two selections speaking to the artist’s themes, included a Final Thoughts section by Kim Lee himself. These poignant words from the human source, recorded it would seem while he was quarantined on Mokopuna, provided whole new dimensions to his story and the isolation he experienced those last months of his life.

Along with the experience at Mokopuna Island itself, this got me thinking more closely about geographic isolation and the way it might weave into the fabric of place. In previous posts I’ve spoken about the way place can be leveraged to create and even promote a community identity. How, connecting individuals who share an awareness of their common location, it can in fact bring otherwise disenfranchised individuals into that community.

But in the case of Mokopuna Island, place is revealed and experienced within the context of isolation, of separation, of loneliness. It is the segregation experienced by Kim Lee, tragically within sight of the large urban centre of Wellington in which he would never again participate, that for him gives rise to and supports an awareness of place. A consequence of the cultural prejudices and medical misconceptions of the time, this sense of isolated place only served to accentuate the unpleasant realities of Lee’s experience as a Chinese minority in early twentieth century New Zealand.

Yet taking into consideration Lee’s recorded thoughts, it is not that simple. For intertwined with and clearly influencing his in situ sense of place on Mokopuna, is his displaced sense of place associated with both his family village in China and the community of his new life as an immigrant in Wellington. It is these more affirmative senses of place that both contrast with the grim reality that has befallen him in his current location, and provide him hope and an amazingly philosophical take on a condition and fate that would likely plunge others into utter despair.

Months of isolation could have driven me mad, confronting myself with only myself, admitting to what I fear, to my regrets, to what my life means. But even though I’m living on a rock in the middle of nowhere, I feel like my life has moved on in some way that it wouldn’t have otherwise….I have learned that solitude provides a space in my mind where I do have some power. I can sit on this rock, look back at Wellington, and imagine it’s home.

 

So what to make of this? What is there to be taken away from Kim Lee’s experience on Mokopuna to help me better comprehend sense of place?

I think when considering such a place sense that has been sourced from and moulded so significantly by isolation, it’s not productive to consider its value ultimately in terms of community, at least not in the same way as I’ve done previously. But that’s not to say that interestingly enough, place cannot in fact still generate those shared connections amongst a set of location-linked individuals and in doing so create something resembling a community, even if it is transient and temporary.

I suspect all of us who experienced the trip to Mokopuna Island on that grey morning last weekend, accosted unexpectedly with that disturbing laugh emanating unseen from the bush near the shore, knew in that moment a heightened awareness of the unique circumstances of the location before us. Though it represented but one artist’s ideas about the ongoing meaning of the historical events associated with that setting, it added in some way to the sensitivities of all of us in witness. We were gifted with insight, if on different levels and of different varieties, into a solitary existence on this small bit of volcanic rock and what then this place truly is.

And I would likewise guess that even while finding ourselves plunged almost immediately into a new environmental condition, we all took something of that new or renewed sense of Mokopuna Island with us, back to our much different lives, where it might influence our own personally held senses of place.

In that we are connected. In that something of a community has resulted and persists.

 

Source for the details of Kim Lee’s experience and his quotes: Ting, Mike. Mokopuna Island project brochure. Wellington, New Zealand. 14 March, 2015.

A deeper community and place

The ways in which place is linked to, or in some cases deliberately employed by, communities are varied and I previously commented on the use of place to purposely perpetuate the identity of a neighbourhood where I live.  Another example, to which I also have some connection, is to be found in a more broadly defined community, that of the city of Wellington.

In the five years I’ve lived in Wellington I’ve never owned a car, a testament to both the compact geography and walk-ability of this city, as well as the exorbitant cost associated with the purchase of most any consumer goods in this expensive country.  As a result I travel to and from the CBD almost exclusively on foot.

Residing in the suburb of Thorndon, my walk into the city often involves a trek down the elevated bluffs lying to the west and north of downtown.  Along the way I cross the commercial district of The Terrace until I emerge via a series of tunnels and stairwells onto the flats of the city ringing the waterfront.

One such path down the slopes into the city takes me through the Clifton Terrace Car Park and along the gentle grade of Woodward Street, a route that passes beneath The Terrace via a pedestrian tunnel.  As such tunnels go, this one is nothing special – it’s walled with mundane and hospital-sterile tiles, marked here and there with graffiti, floored with worn and dirty paving and in general, showing its age.  Clearly and unapologetically designed with no more than a utilitarian purpose in mind, it has been described as “bunker-like.”

But it’s that which lies beneath this uninspired stretch of urban landscape which provides an association with a sense of place.  The particular collection of paved paths, tunnel, stairs and streets that I follow to reach the waterfront is no accidental or random alignment.  It in fact traces the alignment of the Kumutoto Stream as it makes its way from its spring source in the hills beyond the city, through the CBD and at last to the sea.  That waterway still flows in fact, buried now in pipes beneath an urban skin until its final emergence at Kumutoto Wharf on the Wellington Harbour waterfront.

Nearly a year ago now, a local artist was commissioned to temporarily transform the tunnel for its pedestrian users – to a certain extent at least – and create a more apparent and visceral connection to the stream that runs beneath it.  Speakers were installed within the tunnel, continuously playing the sounds of running water, birdsong and the like, captured from a rural riparian area and meant to call to mind Kumutoto Stream as it had once been.  A sign was also erected at the uphill end of the tunnel, explaining the project and noting the presence and historical significance of the subterranean waterway and local geography.

When I first came upon this installation on one of my regular commutes into the city, I was struck by its presence on several levels.  My first thought was that it was an outcome of the Big Data – Changing Place exhibition held about a year prior at the National Library.  During the lead-up to that exhibition, I had provided some input and feedback to the curator in an advisory role, primarily exploring the way that geospatial technologies and global data could provide unexpected ways to connect with local place.

One example highlighted in the exhibit was the use of historic maps and other data sources to effectively uncover the landscapes of cities prior to urban development.  In the host city of Wellington, the series of naturally and culturally significant streams that bisected the city on their way to the sea were considered particularly valuable as a means of demonstrating this idea.  It was envisioned in fact that the City Council might see fit to provide at the very least signage and markers to highlight the presence and alignments of these historically important water courses, now running invisibly beneath the feet of Wellington’s citizens and visitors.

I was surprised then to find out, after sending a photo of the tunnel project sign and inquiring with my contact at the National Library, that he had no knowledge of it.  This work it seems was the result of a distinct effort by a different group, to perpetuate very similar ideas, and therefore spoke to me of the significance of those ideas.

I was also struck by the way the project was described on the posted sign.  No boring public-speak here about urban redevelopment and city improvement efforts as is typical with such government project propaganda.  Instead, a thoughtful discussion about things like the various levels of disconnection experienced by those moving through the local urban landscape.  I found out later that this text sourced directly from the commissioned artist, which itself is an unusual concession in my experience.

The ideas expressed on the sign resonated with my own thoughts about place and suddenly this relatively small urban art installation had become particularly meaningful to me.  It didn’t precisely replicate my idea of place, but was very easily aligned to it.  This to me is the most productive arrangement, for it allows an even greater expansion and discernment of the idea of place than was possible before.  It also speaks I believe to the conscious use of place to strengthen and promote the local community even if, in this case, the community is a city.

In this instance, the creative use of sound with which to evoke a sense of Kumutoto Stream and a sense of this place as it had been prior to Wellington’s urban development, is particularly potent.  It is those sounds, of water rushing over rocks, of insects, of birds, that we inherently associate with a stream and which therefore provide us an intrinsic level of connection.

In the 1860s, Kumutoto was apparently the first such waterway in the emergent city of Wellington to be culverted.  As such it is particularly important as a symbol of the transition of the local environment and of the potential for exploring the significance of place and its resiliency in the face of change.  While perhaps not openly acknowledged I suspect it was the subsequent loss of those sounds, the sudden quieting in the natural sense of the place, that represented the change most meaningfully for locals.

By recapturing those sounds and therefore evoking the sense of place that was once the Kumutoto Stream at this location, this public art installation has provided a powerful tool for those wishing to reconnect with and participate in the identity of a community.  For many passing beneath The Terrace on their way somewhere else, the broadcast stream sounds will provide little more than an instant’s awareness with which to consider the strange juxtaposition of the natural with the very urban and confined space of the tunnel.  Others, with ear buds in place and oblivious to any external sounds, will miss the experience altogether.

But for some the sounds will cause more than a fleeting moment’s pause.  They will strike a chord of place such that thoughts are genuinely altered.  A more considered reading of the project sign might follow and after that discussion with others or research to uncover more information about this location.  The process of establishing a place awareness will have begun.

The connection, as it sometimes is with place, might be direct.  The tunnel at The Terrace, for instance, also marks the location of an historic Māori pa, positioned on a ridge above the flowing water.  Or, as it also is with place, it might not arise from something as tangible as family or historic linkages, but come from somewhere else, represent something else.

For some that might be enough.  But for others still there might emerge the desire and will to leverage that sense of place to actively promote and champion the idea of community.  In that way those so motivated might spread the word and open the experience to a much wider group, all of whom on some level share an identity with this city.

And in this is revealed again the power and significance of place.

The conscious sense of it, speaking to us as individuals, in such a personal way, while also shaping actions of many, on a much broader scale, is testament to its reach.  But more than that, while it simultaneously operates within these differing scales of experience and participation, it also links them as one.  It provides a means for each of us as individuals to engage with the wider group, while also adding a deeper, more resonate level of identity, of meaning, to that community.

Community and place

Place, the awareness of it, is multi-scalar.

While it is typically experienced as something highly personal, emergent within the consciousness of an individual, it is also recognised at wider-reaching levels like those associated with community.

The reasons behind this broader-scale acknowledgement, as with those associated with individual awareness of place, are varied. But what can distinguish place at this particular scale is its deliberate use. Place often springs upon an individual without warning, without conscious effort. Whereas in the context of community it can in fact be used intentionally, as a tool, to promote an agenda, to provide a political voice or to give life and significance to a plan.

In this circumstance, the sense of place is captured and put to work. The wild sense is domesticated, or at least an attempt is made.

And that’s not a bad thing. A tangible sense of place can in fact serve as a critical component in the definition of a community. It can bring members of that geographic group together in a way that significantly strengthens their idea of community and gives meaning to their definition of community. It can serve as that common ground, in this case shared perception, that links them uniquely and supports the idea of a collective voice. It can provide them membership in the true sense of the word.

Place is, in this instance, an individual and potentially very personal awareness distributed amongst a group. And it’s a particularly powerful link, a bond that creates a strong foundation upon which other aspects of community can be explored, built and realised.

That shared sense of place can embrace within it the otherwise disenfranchised and help bring them into the fold. It can motivate and serve as a call to participation amongst those who might otherwise operate in isolation, assuming their sense of place was singular and of no particular interest to others. It can draw them into the group of community, in a natural way, bound by the significance of and connection to a particular location. And once part of the community, the sense of place they share with others can help establish and support them as genuine contributors.

This simultaneous spanning of experiential scales from the highly personal and individualistic to the expanded boundaries of a broader group and community exists as a profound characteristic of place. It is quite amazing really and in my opinion speaks to its significance.

And this particular quality of place does not go unrecognised. I’ve seen numerous examples where communities have leveraged a sense of place, used its shared experience and awareness to strengthen the bonds amongst, and therefore the unified voice of, a group of residents, to create and bolster a geographic identity.

By way of example, I live in the Thorndon neighbourhood of Wellington. When I moved here four years ago, I was aware of the existence of such a neighbourhood, knew its approximate boundaries or at least its topological positioning on the map of Wellington neighbourhoods and possessed the odd fact that it was for instance the birthplace of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers, Katherine Mansfield. But my knowledge of it beyond that, on the level of anything like community awareness, was absent.

In those intervening years I have been struck by just how powerful is the sense of community amongst Thorndon residents and though I may not have previously articulated it as such, just how effectively the shared sense of place here is employed to strengthen and grow that community identity.

Though fairly small, Thorndon boasts more than one active residents association, producing on a fairly regular schedule outputs like newsletters while also convening community meetings. I’ve read those newsletters and have attended a couple of those resident association meetings, all the while surprised at the level of passion with which this community, really its unique and shared sense of place, is considered and held. I leaned a good deal about the history of this neighbourhood and that it was inhabited by many whose roots here ran deep.

And I learned that some who actively participate in these resident groups, the community leaders I would call them (though they may not embrace that title themselves), have been quite deliberate and vocal in their use of place to communicate and promote a local agenda to the broader political structure of the city of Wellington, within which they are situated and must necessarily operate.

Some of the interactions between neighbourhood and city could be characterised as contentious, as for instance the ongoing push against Wellington City Council to revisit its zoning guidelines which, some local voices claim, is currently facilitating a gradual and destructive spread of commercial properties. The cost they explain is a diminished residential tone to the neighbourhood. This they consider an undermining of the character of Thorndon, a commercial gentrification of sorts, as it introduces the detrimental effects of increased traffic and displaces the unique to Wellington and place-defining residential architecture of this area.

Yet in the midst of this rather quarrelsome interaction there has emerged a community improvement project, financed and implemented by the city I assume, which clearly demonstrates common ground. Whilst it may not directly address the spread of commercial properties, it most definitely recognises and speaks to a locally generated sense of place identity. Interestingly, it interjects that proclamation of identity, based on an acknowledgement of unique historical roots, right into the location at the heart of the commercialisation debate.

It is a sense of place that has unmistakably been employed here and which serves as a common means with which to span, on some level at least, the differing geographies and associated political perspectives of the city of Wellington and one of its neighbourhoods. This role as common platform for shared thinking is a hallmark of location-based approaches to problem solving and highlights that peculiar power of geography woven within the idea of place.

The project area in question is commonly described as Tinakori Village. I’m not aware that name represents anything official – I’ve not seen it reflected consistently on maps – but it is most certainly accepted and in common use, amongst the locals if no one else. That in itself is an interesting idea, the use of location names and relationships to sense of place, worth exploring at another time.

Tinakori Village is a commercial zone, running as a straight line along either side of the neighbourhood’s primary thoroughfare, Tinakori Road, and representing the setting for most of the retail activity in the immediate area. These businesses consist primarily of antique shops, art galleries, pubs and restaurants, and spa or wellness facilities. So certainly what some would consider upscale establishments and not necessarily the type of places one would feel compelled to visit every day. Yet I’ve found that the area is consistently well visited, with foot traffic as well as the expected vehicular traffic plying the main transportation artery between heavily populated neighbourhoods to the north and west, and downtown Wellington.

Some months ago, heralded by construction warning signs that sprouted at either end of Tinakori Village, the city embarked on a significant improvement project in the area, which resulted primarily in the upgrading of footpaths and kerbs along several local streets. The steady drone of construction equipment and activities became a characteristic of the neighbourhood during this time. When it was completed, the improvements to the stretch of Tinakori Road footpaths within the Village emerged as the centrepiece of this work.

Beyond the upgrades to the footpath paving and kerbs within Tinakori Village, there were other improvements as well, including the addition of benches and significantly, strips of stone pavers inscribed with quotes from historical and noteworthy residents of Thorndon. These inscriptions were a unique addition to the project and clearly meant to highlight the contributions of local historical figures, their settings of white stone contrasting sharply with the black of the newly paved footpaths surrounding them.

The quotes that now grace the ground underfoot in Tinakori Village are sourced from a mix of creative Thorndon residents, including but not limited to writers and painters and composers. A complete list was recently published and promoted in one of the resident association newsletters, providing not only a handy reference but also an endorsement and recognition of the level of support and agreement between the neighbourhood and the city. This acknowledgement is based on a shared sense of place.

The creative individuals behind the quotes represent a widely ranging collection of professions, interests, experiences and perspectives, but they share in this case a common bond of residence. They share a connection on some level with this place, this community called Thorndon. And it is that bond that links them now, not only to the physical footpaths in the Tinakori Village but also to one another, though their lives might have run their respective courses in wholly separate worlds.

And flipping that around, their quotes, snippets of thoughts from a far-ranging group of former residents, reinforce a specific and localised sense of place for those less notable currently residing in the neighbourhood, as well as those from the outside, shopping or otherwise passing through. That expression of place might trigger a curiosity in those passers-by to know more, while it feeds a level of pride amongst the local residents and sparks a genuine desire to share who they are, to convey the unique history in which their present manifestations have been forged.

This sense of place then is at once a creator, definer and promoter of specific identity, while also a powerful means of connection and communication with others. In this way it serves humanity on a profound level.

Such is the power and significance of place, spanning across time, across geography, to inspire not only the individual and their highly personal levels of awareness but also the broader community and the reflection of its identity – both as a reinforcement to itself and as a proclamation to the world outside itself.