I hadn't been back to Christchurch since the big shakes of September 2010. Therefore I had not seen the aftermath of the devastating February 22, 2011 quake. I dropped in fleetingly at the tale of summer past and then again last week. In summer it was all dust, detours and endless rackets of road crews trying to reinstall infrastructure beneath dipping, potholed suburban roads.
The centre of town was more or less flattened or awaiting the bulldozers. I thought I knew the CBD pretty well but with no landmarks the place was foreign, more a war zone than the heritage centre it once was.
Yet despite this there is growing sense of optimism about the place. Sure its hard to ignore the shell shock that many residents carry in their eyes but Cantabrians pride themselves on their backbone and while the overarching government and its various agencies spend much of their resources meddling and creating a kind of perpetual chaos to many residents lives, there are plenty of locals taking creative advantage of the opportunities that ground zero presents.
The likes of Gap Filler whose regeneration initiatives have seen artists reclaiming empty lots, staging pop up exhibition, installations and interactive activity's...
like the putting greens that pepper the CBD rubble..
While the city fathers, central government and aging parishioners debate the merits of the rebuild of the old Cathedral in other parts of town, random acts of art abound, beyond the cordons.
It's a kind of highly organised anything goes, free for all! Street painting, book exchanges, community chess, knitting displays, the wonderful Pallet Pavilion bar and venue -which sadly I visited without my camera- not to mention the epic...
Like Melbourne-based artist Ash Keating's immense Concrete Propositions (detail above,) which fills the side of an exposed multi-story wall. Or Wayne's Wall...
By Wayne Youle. Encouraging signs for the possibilities of a new city.
In summer I was travelling with Cook. We met a number of hospo folk who were adapting to the new environment.
James
Jamisom not only lost his iconic Le Cafe beneath the stonework of Christchurch Art
Centre's clocktower, he lost his city apartment in the earthquake too. It
would be enough to knock a lesser bloke off his perch.
James though retreated to a cliffside Sumner bach -that had miraculously
escaped the rock slides that plagued that area- to begin some serious
reflection.
A Canadian friend rang from afar to tell him that she had a dream that James had a bar called
the Stray Dog.
He liked that. He says, "in ways, many in Christchurch
were like stray dogs - homeless, baseless, looking for somewhere to be
and settle."
Rather than trying to emulate some of the pop-up operators occupying and
making good of empty lots in the city centre James set cracking on
something permanent in the heart of the former red zone 'to be part of
the rebuild at the ground level.'
Two years on: The St Asaph Street Kitchen and Stray Dog Bar.
If you haven't visited Lyttleton lately you are in for a shock. The place was decimated. So much of the historic business precinct gone. At
the slicker end of the regions' pop ups is the Porthole Bar, which rises
from the rubble of Lyttelton’s Volcano Cafe on the corner of London and
Canterbury streets.
Local craft beers are the house speciality, real ales being something of passion for Porthole proprietor and Lyttleton local, the laconic Mike Dunlay.
The ‘building’ is formed by three shipping containers placed in a U
shape, with a covered deck forming the seating/dining area.
Port holes cut into the container walls reference the towns busy wharf and lend the bar its
name.
We never got to talk to the geezers behind Smash Palace but it is fair to say that old buses, container loos and kitchen, scaffolding, bunting and ripped tarps, do a successful bar make.
On Thursday nights its bike night, where local motorheads can ride into the bar, sip from a man sized bottle, get their bikes tickled by an inhouse mechanic while comparing sojourns out of town.
No matter what one thinks of the City's Mayor, Bob Parker, there is no denying his undying almost eternal optimism for the place is contagious. In a brief conversation I had with him he spoke of his ideal vision for a new, eco-friendly Christchurch. "There are not many places in the world that get a second chance to get it right. Christchurch has lost some fantastic architecture but there was much that was unworkable and tired. We now have an opportunity to rebuild something incredible here and not make the same mistakes. This will be a boom town."
In the meantime many have left, there are some whose property has been refurbished, others displaced, some who have been over-compensated and still more who have not had any affirmative decisions made about their homes.
In the suburbs empty lots sit surrounded by wire fences, fences and walls remain propped up in near collapse, containers buffets rock fall around Sumner, outdoor furniture still sits in situ balancing on cliffs edge at Red Cliffs and all over city the traffic moves slowly as residents negotiate new routes home while the hi-vis teams dig and shovel trying to make sense of what lies broken underground. Meanwhile in the CBD the wrecking crews are in constant action in areas still off limits to residents and business owners, all patrolled by the army. It is still hard to believe that this is New Zealand.
Below are are a few walkabout images made as we hikoi'd with our friend and uber hostess Ms. Freedom Preston Clark.
©burgseye 2013
