When Forest & Bird put the call out for volunteer artists, Amelia Hadfield knew she had to get involved.
Forest & Bird was looking for 13 artists and 13 writers to shine a light on the importance of volunteers working to restore nature, as part of its 26 Centennial Project in partnership with 26, a global not-for-profit writers’ collective that establishes projects around the world, most recently focusing on environmental and climate issues.
Then those artists and writers were randomly teamed up and each pair travelled to one of Forest & Bird’s 120 nature restoration projects nationwide.
“I just sent them an email saying I’d be interested and here we are,” Hadfield said.
Hadfield, who grew up in Kāpiti, was paired up with Auckland-based writer Jane Berney, and the two set off to their assigned destination – the Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve.
The reserve is a 50-hectare, fully restored wetland on the eastern edge of Pāuatahanui Inlet, Porirua, and is home to several bird species including royal spoonbills, pūkeko, kingfishers, fantails, and more.
Once there, Hadfield was tasked with creating an original artwork that responded to the landscape, people, species, and conservation challenges she encountered.
Berney was to create a poem of exactly 100 words that must start and finish with the same three words, along with a 260-word essay inspired by the visit.
“We talked to Robin Chesterfield, who’s like the guardian of [Pāuatahnui Wildlife Reserve], and we talked to him a lot about what was important to them, and we did our writing and our art based on that.”
Amelia Hadfield.
Hadfield’s artwork was created with oil paint, and was called In the Hides, and depicted early morning at the reserve when the tide was outgoing, a time when “the land is awakening, and its inhabitants are emerging into the quiet stillness”.
The piece featured the bird hide at Pāuatahanui which created its own frame with its small, narrow viewing window.
“Here visitors are observers and inherently part of the delicate ecosystem. Kōtuku [white herons], poaka [pied stilts], and kawau pū [black shags] are wadding in the shallows while a mātātā [fernbird] is perched in the harakeke [flax], with others hidden among the raupō [bulrush].”
Hadfield is an oil painter based on the coast. After spending several years away from doing art teaching science at Kāpiti College, and then studying abroad in London, she was excited to be artistic while connecting with her home area.
“It’s nice to get stuck in doing some art for something that is worthwhile.
“It’s also a nice way to lend my time and artistic ability, and it feels good to raise awareness about the reserve. I also got to learn things about it that I didn’t know before.”
The first five projects, including Hadfield and Berney’s Pāuatahanui pieces, launched today, with the remaining eight being published over the next six months.
The writing and artworks created for 26 Forest & Bird Centennial will be released in three stages to coincide with the publication of the spring, summer, and autumn editions of Forest & Bird’s nationally distributed magazine.
Forest & Bird was launched by Ernest ‘Val’ Sanderson in 1923 in Wellington.
It became the first of New Zealand’s modern-day conservation charities and Sanderson led the organisation for 20 years until his death in 1945.
During that time, Sanderson employed artists, cartoonists, and journalists to spread the word about vanishing nature and published art and original writing to educate adults and children about the value of protecting nature for all New Zealanders.
