Sunday, June 23, 2013

A Week of Rain

We've had a week of rain, hail, sleet and snow in Christchurch and during that time, I've been more than a little transfixed by the effect its all had on the city. So today, my camera and I went to inspect - long after everyone else has already covered the worst of the elements but there was still plenty to see. In fact, it seemed to be the activity of the day. With a little sunshine, everyone was out walking, eyeing up the still swollen rivers and creeks.
Certainly the river that normally meanders at a gentle pace through Beckenham and Opawa (is it the Heathcote River perhaps?), was still a fast-flowing torrent lapping at the edges of gardens.
The paper-delivery girl stopped in her tracks.
The extensive surface flooding in South Hagley Park giving birth to a tangle of reflections
The black, bare branches looking slighting ominous and animate.
The South Hagley cricket pitch 'rained off.'
The riverside picnic tables stranded in the meddle of fast-flowing floodwater at Beckenham.
Roads closed all around Opawa.
Little Hagley Park in the north - the gaunt trunks of giant trees sleek and shiny with winter wet.

Opawa, where river and street merge
Making the most of extra water at Beckenham

And impossible for me not to refer the earthquakes at some level. Here, a reflective view of the ruins of the Catholic Basilica - always a sad sight.

"in a winter landscape - especially in a wood - there is the same kind of purity that the Greeks saw in the unclad human form..."

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Once again from the top......

It's been a while since I wandered our broken city taking photographs - got bored with it.
As I've noted here on previous occasions, there comes a point when I need time out.

But here are a few shots I took a couple of weeks ago when I wandered along the most recently opened section of the Red Zone. As always, I was taken by the materiality of things - the improvised sheets of plywood set against plaster or bricks, the 'shadows' left by demolished buildings, the clusters of ugly heating vents, now exposed for all to see.

I like the brutality of those solid concrete walls that were once shut away down alleys, or blocked from view by other buildings.

There are new words to discover - old words that is, newly revealed.
And the starkness of solo high rise that seems to teeter at odd angles.

There's the endless disarray of demolition sites and the wonder at how rapidly a city can change its face
And there are the chairs.
I've always loved chairs but in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes, I've come to love them all the more for the unpredictable ways they have presented themselves, all over the city - out of place, out of kilter.... much like many of the city's people really.

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