NZ visual diary - entry 66

languages of belief

We live within narratives: stories whose origins may be ascribed to divine intervention or social construction, but nonetheless stories that explain who we are, how we belong and how we might dream and aspire.

From high school onward, I have been drawn intellectually to the study of beliefs systems, notably their internal coherence and contradiction.

As is the case the world over, New Zealand finds itself wrestling with the contemporary consequences of an historical confrontation between two rival belief systems, one indigenous and the other colonising.

I have an incomplete grasp of the complexities and nuances of the ongoing struggle, but I look closely as an urban wanderer for signs of the distinct, and often competing, narratives.

On a walk across Queen Street last night, I found an interesting visual portrait of the Kiwi 'beliefs' discourse, of post-missionary Christianity (free Bibles at a prayer station) and the LED screen embedded in a building facade that spoke of Pae Ātea, a Māori phrase for 'open horizons' and the name of a new indigenous-focused creativity portal and public gallery.