Ahead of the installation of her artworks in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, Olivia Webb tells Cityscape about banners, complexity, and Christchurch’s perfect, nameless bench.

Tell us about your work for SCAPE Season 2021. Resilience Training is a voluntary public performance artwork that intends to help us prepare for the seemingly unending series of crises that define our world today. The artwork reconsiders the four cardinal virtues – prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude – to virtues or practices that may provide better support or foundations for resilience in the future: mercy, poverty, humour, and courage. From each virtue stems a simple performance that people can choose to try: walking barefoot; carrying a rock; caring for a worm; or transporting water in a small clay pot.

The performance is organised around four banners, stations positioned throughout the Botanic Gardens. Each banner acts as a gathering post for participants to offload, take-up, or change ‘performance’ tasks. If you choose to participate, you are free to complete the performance at any banner and at any time. There will be a public procession performed by a small ensemble of singers and musicians each Saturday of the season.

Where is it going to be? Resilience Training will be in four locations through the Botanic Gardens Te Māra Huaota o Waipapa. The main site is in front of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.

How does it fit in with the SCAPE 2021 theme ‘Shadows Cast’? Shadows are cast because, somewhere, there is light. We may be living in dark and strange times, but there is still light. This artwork isn’t about ‘seeking the light’ but rather, looks at resilience as a way of navigating the shadows. The performance attends to the utterly surprising places that strength, connection, and a sense of purpose reside.

How did you choose the materials and colours? The original small banners were made from four plain cotton-duck blinds I found in an op-shop in Westport. They were an interesting size, almost human scale, and looked like heraldic flags. The whole work then spun out from there. Four blinds proclaimed the four virtues which bear four performances. And because they were second-hand and a natural fibre, the rest of the materials introduced to the work needed to be reused or able to be returned to the earth or composted. So the work involves clay, water, cotton, rocks, and occasionally worms.

What statement is this piece making? Resilience is hard to define; we are encouraged to ‘hang in there’, ‘be kind’, ‘look out for one another’, and ‘build resilient communities’. What if resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened and prepared before challenges arise? What might that look like?

What do you hope people will take away from experiencing it? I hope that people try the performances for themselves. There’s the world of difference between reading about it or watching others perform it, and actually giving it a go. I promise you’ll learn and experience something quite different by giving it a go.

What materials do you most like working with? Time and the voice.

What is the importance of art to a community? Art helps us to articulate experiences we don’t necessarily have a language for. In particular, artworks can voice multiple different meanings at any time, which captures the complexity of communities and the multitudes within any single person.

Much of your work is very human, and embedded in the community – how did this journey start? This journey began singing with the choir of St Mary of the Angels in Wellington. They are a non-auditioned group of so-called amateur singers who sing some of the most difficult choral music written, every week. There are so many metaphors for life at play here, but one of the most valuable lessons I learned with this group was that you don’t need to be an expert to be capable of complex and difficult things – this is the power of a group.

So often community or group projects are oversimplified, underpinned by a belief that complexity can lead to less participation or engagement. I’ve found the opposite to be true. People are having complex discussions at home and with friends; artists and artworks can support spaces for people to explore difficult challenges collectively, and there is a great need for this.

What is your favourite piece of public art in Ōtautahi? No favourite piece. But there is a beautiful old circular wooden bench facing inward around a large tree in the Botanic Gardens, opposite the Ilex café. It’s a perfect form. No known maker or date that I can find. If anyone knows any more about this, I’d love to learn!

What are you working on next? I’m working on three new compositions for a vocal ensemble, two artwork commissions for early next year, and finishing a publication. I’m also continuing to work with new families for Anthems of Belonging.

oliviawebbartist.com