Kissing Couples on Display at Britomart

Kissing Couples on Display at Britomart

Installation artist Burnett-Rose today presents her work ‘A Thousand Lovers’ at the Britomart Transport Centre as part of an initiative for Artweek. The eight screen video installation features dozens of multicultural couples kissing.

According to Burnett-Rose, the work is a celebration of Auckland’s diversity as well as its Maori history.

“I had also been struck by the deep, if repressed, emotions of the NZ public who responded to my earlier installations, and had noticed that Auckland had a huge international population with many couples of mixed cultural backgrounds,” she said. “The work is named after the Maori word for Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau which means 'the land of a thousand lovers'.”

For several weeks, Burnett-Rose invited couples into her studio/film container on the Queen’s Wharf where she asked them to kiss in front of the camera.

“To my surprise and joy, people self selected, only coming in to kiss if they were in happy relationships,” Burnett-Rose said. “I was so moved that people trusted me, that they opened up to me in person, and on camera, with great joy and passion and a huge amount of hilarity.”

The installation at the Britomart is funded by Auckland Transport. Auckland residents can travel at no cost to the transport centre this evening. Eight large TV screens will show an ever changing loop of the couples kissing in slow motion.

For Burnett-Rose, the process of filming and editing the footage was itself very emotional and full of insights.

“Love is a tangible force; all these couples wandering around Auckland, maybe holding hands, maybe just walking fast to an appointment, love each other adoringly, love their children, and love their lives,” she said. “It was so emotional in the end, as this love is normally hidden, and the love we see on our screens night after night does not capture this genuine, profound affection, desire, and respect that I experienced with this work.”

Media attention of the filming caused couples from around the country to contact her with their own footage and photos of authentic, loving kisses. She explained that she hopes to expand the work and travel around the country documenting couples tenderly embracing as an antidote to the over-sexualized, commercially-driven representations and abuses of sexuality and ‘the kiss’. She sees this work as the first in a series that will examine the subjugated authenticity of our own relationships.

“I am a utopian idealist by nature, and I dream of a world that remembers and recognises these often hidden truths; nothing defines us more than how and who we love,” she said.

‘A Thousand Lovers’ will be presented all day the Britomart Transport Centre. Couples are invited to for a ‘Kiss-a-thon’ at 7pm and there will be live music from 7:30pm. The presentation of the films will continue all next week at the Artbox on Queens Wharf.

For more information and to see some of the films and images, go to http://ellaroseellarose.wix.com/athousandlovers

ENDS

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