Author: Caro McCaw

Ōwheo Rising, an interdisciplinary project where
Art meets Communication Design and history meets the future 

The waters of the Leith or Ōwheo, (the original Māori name meaning “The place of Wheo”) normally divides Otago Polytechnic’s Dunedin campus in two (including the schools of Art and Design), but an interdisciplinary and inter-school Living Campus project known as Ōwheo Rising has made students from both schools reconsider the stream as a way to connect with each other, nature and culture through storytelling and creative practices.

The project began with a one day symposium, bringing a variety of social, cultural and environmental histories together, at Otago Museum’s Hutton Theatre. From there students walked along the stream, and worked in small teams to develop site-responsive works, presenting their understandings as experiences, and proposing their work to a panel of local experts and potential funders.

Otago Polytechnic and Otago Museum collaborated on the design and production of this large-scale exhibition and live project, open between September 2015- February 2016. The theme of this exhibition was care. Through learning about the roles and relationships of New Zealanders in these hospitals, year 3 Bachelor of Design (Communication) students, were encouraged to empathize with these conditions, and develop immersive experiences for Museum visitors of all ages.

Drawing upon Dunedin novelist Maxine Alterio’s book “Lives we leave behind” as a primary resource, the exhibition was developed around the lives of a small group of nurses from Otago and Southland, whose ship sailed to Europe in 1915. Students developed characters, scenes and interactions to support the exhibition story and worked closely with Museum staff to ensure historical accuracy. 

The exhibition design was a provocative restaging of New Zealand Stationery Hospital #1, located about 3kms behind the Western front, in the fields of Flanders. 

Designed and produced by Caro McCaw and Leyton Glen, and year 3 students, with support from Otago Polytechnic’s Workspace. ythe exhibition received over 40,000 visitors and many positive reviews. You can read an article about the project HERE

Restaging a Garden Party 1907, and Historic Toy Hunt, were two projects developed by year 3 communication design students. Students developed social history storytelling, through the design of interactive experiences using material and digital forms. Working with the content and histories of Olveston, a heritage home, gifted to the southern city of Dunedin, New Zealand, the projects engage historic values in innovative ways. 

Both projects use Augmented Reality to tell old stories in new formats, bringing history to life for new audiences. Students engaged with social history research using immersion and role playing. They developed design outcomes using user-focused methods, which engage young people with old stories, not the normal demographic of this museum. The outcome was a valuable collaboration between academics, design students and a local community heritage group, and was presented at NODEM Digital Design and Heritage Conference in Poland, 2014.

Otago Polytechnic’s Living Campus project has seen large areas of Otago Polytechnic’s Dunedin campus transform into edible permaculture gardens. The Living Campus celebrates a sustainable model of urban agriculture for the ownership and benefit of the Dunedin community. The aim of the Living Campus is to inspire curiosity and capability in sustainability to change attitudes to how we use land.

Year 3 Communication design students aimed to tell and share the story of these remarkable gardens. Their designs socialize the experience of the campus gardens and encourage curiosity, interaction and involvement. 

www.op.ac.nz/about-us/sustainability-at-op/what-we-do/benefitting-communities/living-campus/

Container installation for the 2013 Dunedin Fringe Festival: audio work installed in a beehive within a shipping container in Dunedin’s Octagon. 2000 life size bee decals were distributed within a 2km radius in public places. This work aimed to draw attention to the plight of New Zealand’s feral bees, an essential part of our food ecology, but threatened by the Varoa mite. In the summer of 2013 the Varoa mite reached Dunedin. Information was distributed about urban beekeeping.
Designed and produced in collaboration with Leyton Glen.

A tender for public seating in Vogel Street was won by Otago Polytechnic’s workspace innovation studio in 2013. 

A team of design staff and graduates worked together to produce these unique seats that raw together historical industrial and maritime and artists uses of the area. Drawing on the location’s historical context and significance – the area was once a key canoe mooring point for Maori, and later became the entryway for Dunedin’s new arrivals. The seats reference the industries that grew from the jetty and ocean transport routes with shapes that echo ship sails and waves, and bales of wool readied for export in the factories. The materials chosen for the seats reflect the nature of the area; sleepers were incorporated in a nod to the 150-year-old jetty; steel and concrete were used for the body of the seats alluding to the previous industrial nature of the precinct; song lyrics from iconic Dunedin bands were carved into the seats as a tribute to the musicians who once frequented the area.

The original Vogel Street party was held in 2013, and researched and produced by year 3 communication design students. As this historic are of the city was undergoing gentrification students undertook a project, and shared the histories they discovered through the presentation of a range of interactive experiences at this public event, supported by Bachelor of Culinary Arts students.

http://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/vogels-revival/