Louise Stevenson

In Conversation with the Architect (2012)

Installation view, Images and Islands, Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland, 2013

Film Stills

This work re-visits a conversation with Stevenson’s father, Charles Stevenson, about the King George Sixth Secondary School in Honiara, which he designed in 1964. Their discussion is enacted through their hands pointing to Stevenson’s footage of the building fifty years later in 2011 (on the left), while an edited text of the dialogue runs in parallel to this (on the right).  The work considers issues at stake in the inter-relationship between spoken word and materiality via conversation, architectural history and representational imagery.  Stevenson discusses this work in her paper (Re)constructing Tropical Architecture in Solomon Islands: Conversations with my Father," Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 24:2, 214-243 (Read online)