[ see post 1 life in lockdown | post 2 clap for carers ]

Jonny Baker switched form discussing interventions in the current Covid19 crisis to a reflection on three interventions he had reflected on during a visit earlier in the year to New Zealand. 

The first intervention was colonialism and the way that had exported almost a total environment to recreate England. The parks in Christchurch for example look like a park in Ealing and to find the indogenous trees you need to visit the New Zealand section of the botanical gardens! He has blogged about that here – am I in England?

The second intervention was about street art and contrasting the statues of the English settlers and their coloinial swagger with the street art that often included Maori women and indigenous birds. We discussed this before the current wave of protests about statues of slave traders but it now seems very prescient! There is blog post here – smug statues and street art saints

And then lastly by way of dramatic intervention Christchurch had an earthquake which is a pretty serious intervention. And nine years on there is a combination of new growth and building buit also plenty of visiuble signs of the earthquake inlcuding whole areas of the city which are like a ghost town – the red zone where the ground level has lowered so it's no loner habitable but there are garden plots and streetlights of neighbourhoods that are now a trace. Jonny suggested an intervention like that whilst being terrible does create some opportunity for change and newness and used the cathedral as an example – see his blog post when church collapses.

There is a flickr album of NZ photos here and of Christchurch street art here