Keep thinking and questioning

While we were on our honeymoon we brought ourselves a gift (several actually, but that's another story). We couldn't take it home because it was in an exhibition at Tairawhiti Museum. So it didn't arrive at our house yesterday.

It is by Lina Marsh.

The embroidered state houses (there are 21 in the series, all different) represent a "life of dependency" and if you look beyond the convenience of state housing you see how trapped people become in this lifestyle.

I guess this is not your typical honeymoon 'souvenir'. Instead it is subtle and powerful that I hope will remind us to look beyond the everyday and to question situations we take for granted.

Orchids

Last night I went to the opening of Wonderland: The Mystery of the Orchid at Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Rodney Hide gave an opening address. Something about having a super museum in a super city. Yeah, yeah. He's a lot more blokey looking and sounding than I remembered. Like if he wasn't so short I would imagine him as a rugby player. I also spotted, Ruud Kleinpaste, Michal Mckay, and Ray McVinnie.

When I heard the idea for the exhibition I was wondering how they could create a whole exhibition just about orchids, and in some ways I left still wondering. The exhibition design is amazing, the use of gardening equipment as props is very clever and the lighting is pretty cool too. But the actual orchids and orchid objects, well they were interesting, but you would have to really love orchids to fully enjoy this one. My Nana grows some of the best orchids I've ever seen and I think she'd really love it. I'm hoping we can get her up here to see it. Here's one she grew back in 2007, though the photo I took doesn't really do it justice.

I never really thought about the orchid in the way I think of say, roses or daisies or other ubiquitous flowers. But suddenly they are everywhere I look and I hadn't realised. I even had some in bathroom:

The florist has suggested I have the Pink Cymbidium Orchid in my bouquet.

I also noticed this image on the calendar...

They really are a beautiful plant and as the name of the exhibition suggests a little mysterious and seductive too.