Art installation focuses on New Zealand’s worst air crash

27 March 2007

New Zealand’s worst air crash – the 1979 Air New Zealand DC10 crash on Mount Erebus in Antarctica – is the focus of an evocative audiovisual work which opens at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu next month.

White Wall/Black Hole by Auckland artist Stella Brennan is a powerful and disturbing video which reveals the last moments of the passengers lives on Flight 901 before the plane crashes into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.

White Wall/Black Hole combines film footage taken by one of the passengers on the ill-fated flight talking amongst themselves, enjoying a drink and looking out the plane window with imagery from Stella’s own trip to the site of the crash. Digital text runs across the screen.

In making the audiovisual work, Stella Brennan says she worked hard to use the material in a respectful way and has dedicated her art work to those who died in the crash.

"The footage is presented with no commentary. The identity of those shown is protected by those odd black boxes over the eyes that are used to anonymise people. The degraded VHS transfer adds a layer or noise and distortion that kind of veils things over too."

Brennan says the sequence is brief, the rest of the work focussed on the "unpacking of the intensity of those images, to trying to understand what that event was, what it means".

"The disaster was a personal tragedy for those who lost friends and family, but it’s also a very important cultural moment; it had a huge impact for many, many people and it seemed necessary to think and to speak about."

Gallery Director Jenny Harper says White wall/Black hole was shown at the recent Biennale of Sydney and the Gallery was delighted to show as part of its continuing programme of art associated with Antarctica.

Stella Brennan: White Wall/Black Hole is at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu from 21 April to 29 July. Admission free.

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