Showroom for Mars property to open under Soho

Media Release

June 3 2011

For immediate release

Showroom for Mars property to open under Soho

Tired of life on this unstable planet? A world-first showroom on Taranaki St, Wellington New Zealand offers the opportunity for members of the public to consider being pioneers in the future colonisation of the Utopia Plains of Mars.

The showroom at 80 Taranaki St, on the Ground Floor of Soho Apartments, will be opened from Saturday 18 June to Sunday 10 July during weekends, or by appointment.

This latest showing from public art programme Letting Space, comes from Wellington artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith. Holloway-Smith is creating the showroom and website promoting a property development on Mars. Pioneer-City.com gives New Zealanders an opportunity to contribute to the development of a new colony on the red planet.

“With NASA scientists aiming for a human mission to Mars in the next 20 years, and private innovators also paving the way, a Martian colony is not a question of 'if' but 'when'”, says Holloway-Smith.

“At a time when the Wellington City Council is developing a 30-year vision for Wellington,” Letting Space curators Mark Amery and Sophie Jerram add, “this project also implicitly asks the public who controls our visions of the future and what kind of future we want for ourselves and our cities.”

Over the past decade New Zealand cities have been marked by an increase in residential property development. Unbuilt apartments continue to be heavily promoted, often sold from real estate showrooms using architect models and sketches.

“I see a comparison between modern real estate and the way the New Zealand Company sold a romanticised picture of New Zealand to prospective settlers, site unseen”, says Holloway-Smith. “Pioneer-City.com adopts real estate languages to explore the way that Mars might be sold to prospective investors.”,

The website will feature an expression of interest process that invites people to contribute towards shaping the ideal future city.

Staffed by a real estate agent, Pioneer-City.com will launch in an empty retail space in Wellington mid-June. A billboard advertising the Pioneer City property development is currently installed as the Ghuznee St Art Billboard, at 56A Ghuznee St, Wellington with funding support from Wellington City Council.

See http://Pioneer-City.com and http://lettingspace.org.nz for more information.

Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (http://www.bronwyn.co.nz) is an award-winning Wellington-based contemporary artist working in a diverse and interdisciplinary manner. Her work often engages with new technologies and the futuristic ideals and challenges that these technologies may bring. She has shown at significant national galleries, and has works represented in several major public and private art collections. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Massey University.

Letting Space (www.lettingspace.org.nz) seeks to transform the relationship between artists, property developers and their city. It commissions temporary art works from leading New Zealand contemporary artists for commercial CBD spaces, exploring creative ideas for urban renewal and growth. The programme has been responsible for five public art projects in Wellington over the last year, including Kim Paton’s Free Store, in which Paton set up an independent grocery store giving away food for free to explore systems of food distribution, and Tao Wells’ The Beneficiary’s Office, in which Wells’ set up a PR company to promote the benefits of unemployment. Both caused significant national media interest and debate. In March Letting Space staged a work as part of the Auckland Arts Festival, Shopfront by The Suburban Floral Association.

The Letting Space programme is funded by Creative New Zealand. Bronwyn Holloway-Smith’s Pioneer-City.com has also been supported by Wellington’s Emerging Artists Trust.

ENDS.

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