By Charlotte Shipman
A cultural clash has lead to an exhibition near Wellington being cancelled after the Dowse Art Museum decided not to show a work after pressure from local iwi.
The work, by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, showers audiences in bubbles, and was due to open on Saturday.
However because some of the water used to make the bubbles once washed dead bodies in a Mexican mortuary, iwi spokesperson Liz Mellish says that culturally, those who touch the bubbles are inviting death.
She says iwi “would be concerned for all people about such a thing… especially children who could run into it”.
Gallery director Cam McCracken says the 12 week show would have needed just 4 tablespoons of the cadaver water, and there were “never any health and safety issues or danger to the public”.
Since 1982 the gallery has housed a historically significant pataka – or carved storehouse – which is so sacred it can’t be filmed. Iwi were concerned the bubbles could come into contact with it, so they urged it be sealed off if the exhibition went ahead.
Mr McCracken says the pataka is “the heart of the building” and sealing it off was “just too difficult for us to contemplate”.
However, he is keen to contemplate the controversy as art – the gallery now plans to keep the space empty, with an explanation about why the anticipated exhibition isn't on display.
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