Projectspace

LASTJason Hall
1 March - 7 April 2013

By Kathryn Tsui

In LAST, artist Jason Hall carves pickets out of marble to honour his great uncles lost in World War I. The pickets come to signify a monument or headstone for those who lost their lives defending fundamental human principles of home and family. 

Hall recognises that the customary picket fence has come to symbolise domestic land ownership much like the pouwhenua, a land post that for Māori, exists to define and warn of occupied territory. The colonial fence line and pouwhenua both signified land that was either lost or won, similar to the final outcome of war. 

Hall’s pickets are installed in the gallery alongside coffin-like boxes built to protect the marble pickets. Constructed out of skirting boards they further refer to the concept of the home that was being defended. 

Since 1998, Hall’s contemporary jewellery and sculptures have examined the troubled colonial identity of being Pakeha in Aotearoa, New Zealand.  In previous works, Hall fashioned picket brooches out of plywood to represent the home-made plywood shields protesters used in the anti-Springbok tour marches and during the Bastion Point occupation. Hall has also carved bone pickets referring to New Zealand’s dairy farming industry and Māori bone carving traditions. In this exhibition the marble pickets articulate and memorialise the loss of family members through war and the lasting effects colonisation has on the next generations.

Artist Biography

Jason Hall is a West Auckland-based artist with a practice grounded in contemporary jewellery and sculpture. After graduating from Manukau Institute of Technology, MIT, Hall worked with renowned contemporary jewellers and sculptors, Kobi Bosshard, Warwick Freeman and John Edgar. Hall’s work has featured in solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia including, Craft ACT in Canberra, Fingers Gallery and Objectspace in Auckland. In 2011 Hall completed a major public art project, Opanuku Bridge which form the entrance ways at both ends of Henderson’s main street.