Fresh perspective on the radical 70s era

By LINDA HERRICK

Beam me up Scottie ... space cadet "Glennis" has lift-off at Lopdell House Gallery in Andrea du Chatenier's multimedia installation, Kirk's Girls.

Girls these are not, neither young nor pretty, but decidedly older, deformed or wounded, and packing a mean attitude. Quite the opposite to the bland man-pleasers in 70s episodes of Star Trek, but du Chatenier's show is actually not about the cult sci-fi series. It's about a time in New Zealand history and boldly going where no one has gone before.

Along with the series of large-scale photos of the "girls", there is a spaceship in the gallery's upstairs verandah and a looping soundtrack from two early Star Trek episodes, with all the male voices erased.

The aim, says du Chatenier, is to parallel the radical 70s era of Prime Minister Norman Kirk - and use the portraits as a way of contextualising that time.

"That particular period was a time of great social change. People were becoming idealistic and in New Zealand suddenly we had a Labour Government under Kirk. There was a feeling of great possibility, more independence as a nation, the anti-nuclear movement, the end of the Vietnam War.

"There were also anti-discrimination laws which meant women could apply for any job."

The creatures in Kirk's Girls are du Chatenier's playful imagining of the product of Star Trek's Captain Kirk actually having sex with alien creatures, a temptation often presented to him in the series which he always resolutely resisted.

"These are the hybrids, they have gone through the mill and they are battle-weary. It's really about image-making - looking at how a portrait is as much about context as about individuals. So I've chosen a group of people and then thought about how they are part of something, defined by a time or place or age."

Du Chatenier, who has a masters degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and teaches sculpture and design at Unitec, finds many of her younger students "very apolitical. They don't know who Norman Kirk was, and they have a sort of amnesia about where New Zealand comes from."

But they do know Captain Kirk and Star Trek and projects like Kirk's Girls are a subversive way to inform, says du Chatenier with a grin, "through image-making defined by pop culture".

Besides, it was fun, dressing up with friends and family, striking the absurd poses.

"None of us has had the opportunity to be top models. It was like a very tacky makeover.

"I was trying to get them to pose as angry women when all we wanted to do was laugh and have fun."

* Kirk's Girls, Lopdell House Gallery, Titirangi, to March 16.