Jun

The Wondrous World of Steampunk New Zealand

by Joyce McGreevy on June 17, 2019

Parade goers cheer the arrival of Queen Victoria (Pinky Agnew) at Steampunk Festival NZ, which reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Liz Cadogan)

As an airship hovers nearby, Queen Victoria rolls into town for Steampunk Festival NZ.
© Liz Cadogan/@LizCadogan

Victorian Cultural Heritage
Meets Kiwi Creativity

Queen Victoria was there, celebrating her 200th birthday. Festivities included a parade, teapot races, parasol duels, and a wedding. The bride wore purple, the groom a metal samurai hat.

What is this?

Oh, I see: This is Oamaru (pop. 13,000), where Victorian cultural heritage and Steampunk creative thinking are a marriage made in heaven—a.k.a. New Zealand.

Parasol duelists and crowds enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Janet Doyle)

Like “Rock Paper Scissors,” parasol duels involve three moves: Plant, Twirl, Snub.
© Janet Doyle

What is Steampunk?

By definition, it’s a sub-genre of science fantasy set in an alternative Victorian era. By practice, it’s an art inspired by 19th-century steam-powered machinery. By Jove, it’s jolly good fun!

A steampunk spaceman, bagpiper, and crowds enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Liz Cadogan)

No Steampunk Victorian deep-sea diver ever forgets his top hat.
© Liz Cadogan/@LizCadogan

In Oamaru, the Victorian setting is real. Built on gold rushes and grain booms, Oamaru was once New Zealand’s 9th biggest city, burgeoning at the same pace as San Francisco.

Then the boom went bust.

The limestone architecture of Oamaru, New Zealand site of Steampunk Festival NZ, reflects its Victorian cultural heritage. (Image © Brenda Mueli / OamaruCaptured)

With its Victorian limestone architecture, Oamaru is a popular location for filmmakers.
©Brenda Mueli @OamaruCaptured

But a national treasure was hiding in plain sight—New Zealand’s most intact Victorian architectural landscape. With 70 heritage buildings on the historical register, Oamaru proved the ideal Steampunk Capital of the Southern Hemisphere.

A couple in “full steam” costumes reflect the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Malcolm and Annette. Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography )

In the steampunk retro-future, whimsical fashion is all the rage.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

Imagining Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today

“Steampunk is as rich as your imagination can possibly make it,” says Helen Jansen, a.k.a. sky pirate La Falconesse. She and Iain “Agent Darling” Clark organize Steampunk Festival NZ for visitors from around the world.

ain Clark (“Agent Darling”) and Helen Elizabeth Jansen (“La Falconesse”) launched Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Clark and Jansen have been widely praised for making NZ steampunk welcoming to all.
© Joyce McGreevy

They attribute steampunk’s appeal to its inclusiveness and creativity. “It lends itself to the creation of a personality as an extension of yourself in that alternative time,” says Clark. “You’re not being somebody else, as in LARPing [live action role play], where you’re playing the part of, say, Captain America.”

“In steampunk you get the opportunity to become the person you imagine yourself to be, and that may be an airship captain, an inventor, or a secret agent who travels through time.”

A man in glowing beard and costume reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Malcolm and Annette. Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography )

Steampunk’s popping of personality lets us be more than we appear to be in our everyday lives.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

Delight in Discovery

Says Jansen, “We’ve seen people develop their confidence and create the most incredible devices and outfits. Some people who were very shy are now going on stage. They’ve found the wonder.”

A girl in steampunk costume reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Annette and Malcolm Whyte/ M&A Whyte Photography )

“Every year as people come to Oamaru you see that delight in an inner discovery,” says Jansen.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

She and Clark delight that fellow Kiwis are discovering Oamaru, located in the Waitaki District of New Zealand’s South Island.

“I was in tourism and came here because of the penguin colony,” says Jansen. “Oamaru was known in the international tourism market as a place to see penguins, but people I met in other parts of New Zealand would look at me quizzically and say, ‘Where?’”

Steampunk Festival NZ changed that. Today, wherever Clark and Jansen travel, people ask, “Oh, are you from Oamaru?” It’s become a point of pride.

Iain Clark and Helen Elizabeth Jansen, organizers of Steampunk Festival NZ, pose in “full steam” to celebrate the Victorian cultural heritage and steampunk creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

“We always travel in ‘full steam,’ ” says Jansen of their garb. “It’s too heavy to pack.”
© Joyce McGreevy

All for Love and Fun

When Clark and Jansen launched the steampunk movement in Oamaru, he was a captain in another movement, ALF’s Army.

“All for Love and Fun,” explains Clark. ALF’s Army was founded by a university lecturer in the 1960s when tensions over the Vietnam War were a regular feature of campus life.

“The idea was to get rid of aggression in a peaceful way.”

Groups formed regiments of pacifist armies and did battle, using paper swords, flower bombs, and cold porridge.

“The nurses would revive everybody with whiskey and jellybeans,” says Jansen.

The rules of tea dueling are elaborate. One should “dunk as if one’s life depended upon it.”
© Tourism Waitaki

Today ALF’s Army is New Zealand’s “largest pacifist warfare organization” with regiments in several towns and cities. Another delightful fact: In 1990, ALF’s founder was appointed The Wizard of New Zealand by Prime Minister Mike Moore. Yes, officially.

Wizardry Was Just the Beginning

One evening as Clark, a renowned jeweler, celebrated with his Oamaru regiment, he brought along a beer mug embellished with fanciful gadgets. This inspired the formation of the League of Victorian Imagineers, which led to an exhibition—which drew thousands of visitors to Oamaru’s Victorian Heritage Celebration.

Two steampunk mugs created by Iain Clark, manufacturing jeweler and organizer of Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and steampunk creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A steampunk gadget must look as if it works, says Clark. “Oh, it’s got a wee boiler
and high-voltage electricity. What could possibly go wrong?”
© Joyce McGreevy

Soon all these different parts—steampunk, Victorian heritage, history, fantasy, love and fun, creative thinking, local neighborliness, and worldwide interest—clicked together, like one exquisitely embellished gadget of possibility.

Craft is key. As a music video explains, you can’t just glue on gears and call it steampunk.
© Tourism Waitaki

The Steampunk Festival NZ steamed gloriously forth, a gathering of be-gowned, be-goggled, and be-jeweled ladies and gents amid a gleaming array of gizmos, gauges, and gears.

A group of costumed steampunkers enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Janet Doyle)

“Everybody who comes is also contributing to creating the festival,” says Jansen.
© Janet Doyle

Ten years on, Steampunk Festival NZ is the crown jewel of a town that’s increasingly rich in tourism treasure.

Better still, the Festival’s richness is not about making money, but all for love and fun. One more reason to visit Oamaru, NZ, where Victorian cultural heritage and Steampunk creative thinking fit together, hand in gadget-embellished glove.

A steampunk glove belongs to La Falconesse (a.k.a. Helen Jansen, organizer of Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Does this glove let La Falconesse teleport between places and times? One imagines so!
© Joyce McGreevy

Follow Steampunk NZ here. Plan Oamaru/Waitaki travels here.

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/New Zealand/The World's Art & Design

May

Five Minutes from Antarctica: Amazing Places on Earth

by Joyce McGreevy on May 13, 2019

The International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand is the only specialized Antarctic attraction in the world. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Christchurch is home to the only specialized Antarctic attraction in the world.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Cool New Zealand Experience

Arriving at Christchurch Airport, I overhear a family discussing one of the most amazing places on Earth.

“We should stop by Antarctica.”

“Do we have time? It’s almost 3:30. Mum’s expecting us.”

“No worries. It’s only five minutes from here. A waddle, really.”

“Kids, do you want to go to Antarctica? We’re just popping in for a bit.”

It’s the most matter-of-fact call to adventure I’ve ever heard.

Intrigued, I roll my suitcase past waiting taxis, hang a left, and tag along on the the World’s Most Casual Expedition.

Funny, it doesn’t look Antarctic! Christchurch is the logistics center for the
Antarctic research expeditions of NZ, the U.S., Korea, and Italy.
© Joyce McGreevy

What’s It Like to Travel Antarctic Terrain?

Minutes later, we’re staring at what look like giant tractors. Hägglunds are all-terrain amphibious Antarctic vehicles designed to clamber over the roughest, iciest terrain. A driver calls, “Last run of the day, lovies!”

A Hägglund outside the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to navigate the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Not your average parking lot. Across the street are the headquarters
of the U.S. Antarctic Program.
© Joyce McGreevy

As our suitcases rest comfortably in a locker, we discover how it feels for scientists to travel in Antarctica.

Bones shake, brains rattle, and stomachs flip. We picture the real thing: going up and down steep icy slopes. Through treacherous water. Across flat land that may hide a deadly crevasse.

Somewhat wobblier for the experience, I approach the main building. A sign says “Gateway to Antarctica.”

Extreme cold weather clothing on display at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors how to dress for the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

What the cool crowd’s wearing in Antarctica this season.
© Joyce McGreevy

Why Is the Antarctic Center in Christchurch?

One of five official “gateway” cities, Christchurch has designed the International Antarctic Center to let the public experience what life is like in the coolest place on Earth.

A replica of an ice cave at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to explore the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A replica ice cave is eerily convincing.
© Joyce McGreevy

Instead of just looking at exhibits, you explore them. These range from a full-scale ice cave to an explorer’s hut and its surroundings, complete with changing weather and visibility.

It’s so immersive that afterward, says a guide, some folks feel “exhilarated and a bit bedraggled.” That’s probably in keeping with the effects of an actual Antarctic sojourn.

A replica of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova hut at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it was like to live in the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Step into the hut from Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913).
© Joyce McGreevy

By honoring New Zealand’s cultural heritage of Antarctic science and stewardship, the Center has attracted many prominent visitors, from prime ministers to presidents. But none have been more warmly welcomed, says our guide, than “Ed.”

Who Was “Ed”?

Our guide says: A shy Auckland city boy and beekeeper who secretly dreamed of adventure.

Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand shows what inspired Edmund Hillary to climb Mt Everest and explore the coolest place on earth, Antarctica. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A secondary-school ski trip to New Zealand’s Mt Ruapehu inspired “Ed” to seek adventure.
© Joyce McGreevy

As “Ed” later wrote in his autobiography, “I returned home in a glow of fiery enthusiasm for the sun and the cold and the snow—especially the snow!”

Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary embodied the spirit of exploration to some of the most amazing places on Earth. (Public domain)

In 1953, Tenzing Norgay and “Ed”—a.k.a. Edmund Hillary—reached the summit of Mt Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
© Joyce McGreevy

Five years later Ed Hillary led the New Zealand contingent of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition. His team became the first to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Scott’s tragic journey of 1911–1912.

Hillary’s enthusiasm for snow had, in the understated words of our guide, “turned out rather interesting.”

So folks must have been “rather pleased” when Hillary stopped by the Center, especially when he praised the realism of the world’s first indoor Antarctic Storm.

How Do You Create the Perfect Storm?

Designed to simulate a blizzard on the South Pole, this snow and ice experience takes place in a special room complete with icy surfaces, wind chill machine, stunning lighting effects, subzero temperature drop, and authentic Antarctic blizzard audio.

The Storm Room at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to experience the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

“Hurry!” the guide says. “You don’t want to miss the blizzard!”
© Joyce McGreevy

As visitors don parkas and boots, eagerly awaiting their chance to be blasted into human ice cubes, I question my own eagerness. After all, I’ve lived in Chicago.

The Storm Room at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what a blizzard is like in the windiest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Even the Windy City can’t top Antarctica’s record as windiest place on the planet.
Winds exceeding 198 mph have been recorded.
© Joyce McGreevy

Why Does This Continent Captivate Us?

Author Jon Krakauer says Antarctica has “mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space.” But I think that’s only part of it, because Antarctica—our most vulnerable continent–also registers the huge impact we humans make.

Uniquely lacking in permanent residents, this continent models the cross-cultural heritage of protecting our global home.
Isolated from other continents, it connects to every continent through its oceanic and atmospheric effects.
Farther than most of us will ever travel, this continent connects the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the daily choices we make.

Oh, I see: Antarctica is even closer than I realized.

A replica of the C-130 Hercules interior at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand lets visitors imagine what it’s like to make to the long flight to the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Think Economy’s rough? The C-130 Hercules is equipped with skis for landing on ice.
© Joyce McGreevy

Discover one of the most amazing places on Earth in a new podcast series, “Antarctica Unfrozen,” here.

Explore New Zealand’s heritage of Antarctic science, here.

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

Adventure Travel/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/New Zealand

Apr

“Where Are the Women?”

by Joyce McGreevy on April 16, 2019

Shadow of a woman on stairs in a restorer's studio in Florence where Jane Adams of Advancing Women Artists is working to restore the hidden half of Italy's artistic heritage. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

The Hidden Half of Florence, Italy’s Artistic Heritage

“First came the flood,” says Jane Adams. “Then came the flood of helpers.” A passionate builder of partnerships for Advancing Women Artists, Adams meets me at a café near the River Arno. The setting is picture-perfect: Florence, a 2,000-year-old city and the center of Italy’s artistic heritage.

In Florence, reflections of buildings in the Arno river that flooded in 1966 and threatened Italy's artistic heritage. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

But on November 4, 1966, the Arno surged over its banks with brutal ugliness, tearing the city in two. It killed 101 people, and inundated historic buildings to a depth of 22 feet.

By the time the water receded, it had deposited 600,000 tons of mud—one ton for everyone in the city. Slicked with motor oil, it swallowed up 14,000 treasures of Renaissance art.

In Florence, a flooded piazza in 1966 is a reminder of threats to Italy's artistic heritage. [image in the public domain]

A café in Florence, Italy, after the flood of 1966.

The Mud Angels

Almost immediately, volunteers showed up by the hundreds. In that pre-digital era, gli angeli del fango—“mud angels”—converged on Florence from across Europe with astonishing speed. According to historian Richard Ivan Jobs, “even before soldiers arrived as part of the official government response, ‘the city was already in the hands of the young’.”

The painstaking work of restoring art began.

But the flood was not the only threat to Italy’s art, says Adams. Artworks by women had long been buried by neglect. For centuries, the hidden half of Florence’s artistic heritage was relegated to basements or incorrectly attributed to men.

Who would undo that damage?

Jane Fortune of Advancing Women Artists inspired worldwide support for the restoration of forgotten works by female Renaissance artists who are part of Italy's artistic heritage. (image by Advancing Women Artists Archives)

Jane Fortune’s book inspired the Emmy-winning documentary
Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence.
Photo courtesy of Advancing Women Artists

Florence’s Good Fortune

In 1967, a college student in Florence named Jane Fortune was heading home to her native Indiana. As Adams tells it, Fortune said to herself, I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I will find a way to give something back to this city.

In 2005 she got her chance.

Returning to Florence as an art columnist, Fortune explored museums and was soon moved to wonder: Where are the women? Highly visible as subjects, they were rarely seen as artists.

The San Marco convent and museum in Florence that evokes the forgotten artists of the Italian Renaissance who are part of Italy's artistic heritage. [image in the public domain]

Something was hidden away in a corner of San Marco, Florence.

Then Fortune read about Plautilla Nelli.

The first-known female Renaissance painter, Nelli had been wildly successful, an achievement made more remarkable by the fact that as a woman she could not study anatomy or join a guild. Nor was she a lady of leisure. The prioress of a convent, she taught classes, managed budgets, and met daily demands.

Yet Nelli became one of the few women included in Europe’s first major art-history book, Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1568).

As Vasari observed, “There were so many of [Nelli’s] paintings in the houses of gentlemen in Florence it would be tedious to mention them all.”

The masterpiece Lamentation with Saints by Plautilla Nelli shows why Advancing Women Artists is working in Florence to restore the hidden half of Italy's artistic heritage. [public domain image]

Praised for its raw grief, Nelli’s Lamentation with Saints almost vanished forever.

Searching for Nelli

Intrigued, Fortune sought Nelli’s work, but only three paintings remained. When she tracked down one of them, it was a dark canvas streaked in dirt and infested with woodworm.

Fortune decided then and there to commit herself to the restoration of Nelli’s work.

Rosella Lari and Jane Adams view Plautilla Nelli's The Last Supper, an important work in Italy's artistic heritage that Advancing Women Artists is working to restore. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

In the process, Fortune inspired a movement. As more people supported the effort, the number of artistic search-and-rescue missions grew. In 2009, Fortune founded the Advancing Women Artists Foundation.

“Our aim is to create a connection between art lovers of the present and women artists of the past for everyone’s future,” says Adams.

It’s a mission that she and AWA director Linda Falcone have inherited from Fortune. “Indiana Jane,” as she was affectionately nicknamed by the Italian press, died of ovarian cancer in September 2018.

A Citizen of Florence

“What she did, she did in partnership,” says Adams. “It was for the sheer good of giving back something to Florence, bringing back to the forefront the hidden half of the Florentine Renaissance heritage.”

Rosella Lari stands before Plautilla Nelli's The Last Supper, which she is restoring as part of Advancing Women Artists' efforts to illuminate the hidden half of Italy's artistic heritage. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

The Art of Making Art Visible

Now Adams and Falcone are carrying that partnership forward, inviting us to practice the art of making women’s art visible.

Before-and-after details from Plautilla Nelli's The Last Supper reflect the painstaking efforts by Advancing Women Artists in Florence to restore the hidden half of Italy's artistic heritage. (Left: Image by Francesco Cacchiani for Advancing Women Artists; Right: Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

“Restoration is not re-creation,” says Adams of the painstaking process of
revealing original work.
L: Francesco Cacchiani for AWA / R: © Joyce McGreevy

AWA has restored 61 paintings and sculptures, published a dozen ground-breaking books, and identified 2,000 forgotten artworks. The foundation is building the world’s largest digital database of 15th- to 19th-century women artists.

Meanwhile, a painting once covered in dirt and infested with woodworm is nearing the final stages of restoration. When it goes on view in the Santa Maria Novella Museum, it will be the first time in 450 years that it has been publicly displayed.

Oh, I see: The hidden half of Florence, Italy’s artistic heritage is steadily coming to light.

Jane Adams, partnership relations director of Advancing Women Artists, is working in Florence to restore the hidden half of Italy's artistic heritage. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Adams (above), Falcone, and donors from 19 countries are giving new visibility
to historic women artists.
© Joyce McGreevy

Join the worldwide effort to save women’s artwork here. Follow AWA here.

Explore Nelli’s Last Supper, the world’s largest painting by a female Renaissance artist here.

Comment on the post below.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Italy/The World's Art & Design

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The Wondrous World of Steampunk New Zealand