Ad students invoke South American art in Smith & Caughey window project

EditorNews Make a Comment

A team of third-year students from AUT Communication Design have designed and constructed a dramatic window display at Smith & Caughey in Queen St – responding to the Space to Dream exhibition, currently on display at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

“The display is a representation of a huge heart (a realistic rather than symbolic representation) that is quite spectacular, especially in the evening light,” says AUT’s Dr Alan Young.

Student Megan Au said: “It is important that it is a huge anatomical heart. But also, it’s construction is interesting—simple materials: woven yarn (nearly 2000m2), nearly 500 nails, and a sheet of plywood.

“This links in with Chaco, traditional South American crafts and the concept of revolution,” she said. This links in with Chaco, traditional South American crafts and the concept of revolution.


“This endeavour was inspired in particular by the artwork Chaco (2012) by Joaquín Sánchez. In the heart of many South American artists is their culture: language, religion, crafts, histories of the place and the people.

“This endeavour was inspired in particular by the artwork Chaco (2012) by Joaquín Sánchez. In the heart of many South American artists is their culture: language, religion, crafts, histories of the place and the people.

“This has been a culture worth fighting for,” Au says. “Hence art was revolutionised. Space to Dream is the first major exhibition in Australasia to introduce, in depth, the art of South America.

“The exhibition reveals how South American artists see a social significance for their work and how as rebels and revolutionaries, dreamers and poets, they have challenged, embraced, explained or transformed their realities, lives, cultures and spaces from the 1960s to today.”

The Smith & Caughey window display is up until Wednesday 20 July 2016; and Space to Dream: Recent Art from South America is on at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki until Sunday 18 September.

The student team members were: Megan Au, Christie Higgins, Maria Rutherford, Hannah Sames, Stephanie Zwerink.

The AUT staff involved were Dr Alan Young and Dr Johnson Witehira.


Share this Post