Taranaki Platform Ecologies

Andrew Gryf Paterson’s project ‘Taranaki Platform Ecologies’ responds to and sets
 out to nourish, the online platforms surrounding Puke Ariki, by exploring,
 documenting and bridging online/offline aspects of the former wiki, and soon
 to be kete. 


The online kete platform was originally developed by the Horowhenua Library as a digital cultural heritage repository – “a knowledge basket of images, audio, video and documents which are collected and catalogued by the community” – building upon the national interactive education vision of ‘Kete Ipurangi’.  A localised Taranaki kete online platform is currently ready and open for use, like others being installed by organisations and institutions around Aotearoa-New Zealand.


Using the proposition that these platforms can be interpreted as ‘ecosystems’ – imagined by initiators to be sustainable, outgoing and ongoing developments – he makes conceptual connections with the natural and social ecologies in New Plymouth’s popular and historic public Pukekura Park.


In the first week Andrew is making conversational-interviews with key Puke Ariki staff who gave insights into the social, cultural, historical relations and ambitions in Pukekura Park. Simultaneously he is researching similar aspects of the former and future online platforms.  In the second week he will have conversations with persons who bridge these ambitions and care for both spaces.


Following, he will transfer meanings and concepts from the social-natural ecosystem of the park to the social-informational systems of the online platforms.  This means identifying the inputs and outputs to these environments, including how the organisms, actors or components within, affect each other. It also involves mapping out the exchange of forces/energies and material (such as informational) transfers involved.


This residency project is made in collaboration with Puke Ariki, as part of their Education for Sustainability programme, inviting several local high-school students to join the research process.  In discussion with the teenagers, he will develop an iterative series of diagrams, which acknowledge the complex interactions between all involved in these ecosystems. 


With the case of the growing online kete platform, the aim of Andrew’s project is to identify ways to sustain its existence in the Taranaki region, nourish the persons involved and ultimately, keep the local knowledge flowing between persons.

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Andrew Gryf Paterson is a Scottish artist-organiser, cultural producer and researcher based in Helsinki, Finland. His work involves variable roles of initiator, participant, author and curator, according to different collaborative and cross-disciplinary processes, across the fields of media/ network/ environmental activism. He pursues this practice through workshops, performative events, and storytelling.

http://agryfp.info