Earthpushers, 2017
soil, hessian bags, pallets, chair, signage and map
Activated 28 January–3 February 2017
Digging, shoveling, transporting and selling earth has been a human practice and business for along time. Even the great Māui talks about how his brothers were quick to carve the skin of the great fish into rough and jagged mountains and hillsides. Waiheke Island is woven into the history of this practice as sand and shingle were extracted from its beaches to build many of Auckland’s urban spaces, buildings, and road infrastructure, most notably the Grafton Bridge.
Earthpushers by Jeremy Leatinu’u is a seven day project that invites the public to help transport earth over water from one place to another, in this case from Auckland to Waiheke. The gesture of this action can be seen as a return of earth to the island as well as a time to reflect our own relationship and history with this natural material.
