From Extinction to Icon

As collage creates meaning through combinations of found imagery, this show is a collage of ideas and images that create dialogue through their juxtaposition, where seemingly disparate imagery becomes coherent when viewed as a collection.

Appropriation is used to create a superficial sense of familiarity, while subversively highlighting humanity's tradition of absurdity and barbarism. Additionally, commercial production methods nod to post-modernism and our consumeristic tendencies. 

In appropriation of the natural world, species, places, the whenua, cultures and beliefs become displaced objects, or products with a value associated to them. This is a space where humans see a taniwha as part of the awa, but really it is the awa. They confuse the idea of ownership of nature with being part of nature, and nature itself becomes currency.

‘From Extinction to Icon’ is a collection that speaks to the idea that the value we place on our environment can be dictated by fashion, and furthermore that price denotes value.