We posted recently about Rudi Gopas and his ‘visits’ to the outer planets and back. Then, in a touch of serendipity, we not only came across a photograph that Rudi had given us at the time (one of his moon shots), but we read on Bunker Notes the Christchurch Art Gallery blog that they have a collection of Gopas photography.
As absurd as it seems, the earthquakes have animated some aspects of culture in Christchurch. Witness gapfiller, artsvoice and a wave of other initiatives and spaces. The disaster has also shaken loose some time for the staff of the Christchurch Art Gallery to push forward on making the collection and their ideas more widely available. Whereas pre-quake you mostly had to wait around for a book or a catalogue to read stuff from Justin Paton, you can now get regular ideas and insights from him on Bunker Notes.
And there's a lot more. People on staff like Felicity Milburn and Peter Vangioni are curating shows from the collection via My Gallery and anyone online is being encouraged to make and share their own selections.
It was also by browsing through My Gallery we were able to see a full range of the Gopas photos in the Christchurch Art Gallery's collection. Excellent, we’ll send the moon shot down to join them.
