City Gallery Wellington
Feb 19-June 11 | Reviewed by Kiran Chug

THE SHEER scale of In Another Life is astounding. It spreads across both the West and East Galleries of Wellington’s City Gallery and has been thoughtfully displayed with a serious regard for the positioning of each piece. Patricia Piccinini’s aptly titled exhibition seeks to create, explore and present another world, different from but still recognisable to our own. In this other world, she considers the possibility of our being given another chance at existence and the opportunity to correct our errors. Eloquently, she states that “this show is about good intentions, about doing the wrong thing for the right reason.” Broaching questions regarding genetic engineering, rapid environmental change and the constantly shifting boundaries between mankind and nature, she uses a range of artistic mediums to successfully encourage her audience to ask the very questions that are easier to shy away from.

Entering the West Gallery it is hard, but worthwhile, to temporarily ignore the video installation and turn to the first wall of sketches. Patricia Piccinini describes these drawings as the point from which the whole show emanates; sketches of children, they highlight that innocent and youthful quality of acceptance, of refraining from making moral judgements. Playing with these children are the beings Piccinini lovingly refers to as Nature’s Little Helpers. Unique and original, the size of babies, they are her most imaginative creations and capable of resolving the problems we cause our environment.

Piccinini admits to formulating the ideas and concepts behind Nature’s Little Helpers, and then working with a large and talented team in their physical construction. Painstakingly formed from silicon, fibreglass and even human hair, the level of detail is obvious and nothing short of exceptional. Folds of skin hang precisely as they should, hair appears to grow in the correct direction and even the wrinkles of skin we all find around our outer elbows have been re-created. This almost human quality is essential to recognise, for it places the creatures in a unique position. Neither human nor animal, they have been technologically created but are now independent beings with an autonomous existence.

Nature’s Little Helpers: Surrogate crouches on an embroidered blue leather base. On his back are six pouches, out of which are emerging two very young Northern Hairy Nosed Wombats, and another, still hairless and pink, tiny baby wombat. Concerned that we are destroying their natural habitat, this is Piccinini’s proposal to assist the endangered Wombat’s survival. Creating an entity to protect the wombat, however, echoes sharply with the introduction of various non-native species to Australia that Piccinini points to as a major error.


Piccinini does go some way to address this tension in recognising that Nature’s Little Helpers will not exist under human control, particularly in her series of photographs. Lining the East Gallery, these digital photographs depict both rural and urban scenes, where Nature’s Little Helpers have been placed and photographed. The series ponders the rapidity at which new technology is absorbed by society, whilst also drawing attention to the possibility of our not being able to manage the very technology we have introduced. Nature’s Little Helpers: Roadkill in particular scrutinises our role and, even, our right in putting sticky plasters over our past mistakes.

Upon entering the East Gallery, viewers face another of Nature’s Little Helpers, before looking at the photographs. Approaching the back of the room, it is possible to make out a figure, lying with their back towards the entrance. The Young Family is perhaps the most visually arresting and unnerving of all the works on display. Conceptually relevant to the debates on stem cell research and genetic engineering, Piccinini has presented a poignantly stirring image of a mother and her babies. Three suckle close to her body, as she modestly turns her back on the room, seeming to consider an uncertain future. Somewhere between sow and woman, this creation is undeniably a mother and a sentient being.

Also exhibited are Piccinini’s Cyclepups and Truck Babies. Blurring the boundary line between nature and machine, Piccinini uses these to explore the possibility of subverting mass culture through the possibility of giving it personality. Again, the lines between human, animal and machine are exposed for their fragility.

Piccinini doesn’t offer any simple answers to the questions she raises. Instead, viewers face tensions difficult to resolve and possibly best characterised in Nature’s Little Helpers: The Embrace. A lifelike Piccinini is viewed from the back, falling to the ground, with the tiny hands and face of a ‘Nature’s Little Helper’ clasped around her head. From the other side, the image is more unnerving still. The only visible parts of Piccinini’s head, are her ears as Nature’s Little Helper has jumped onto her face. Is this good or bad? Is she being embraced or suffocated? The questions are exactly those raised by the exhibition as a whole.

This exhibition doesn’t ask new questions, but it does force them into the limelight in an innovative fashion. The inventive and thought provoking explorations are at times endearing, at times disquieting, and at times sublime. Patricia Piccinini succeeds in placing viewers In Another Life, wondering at how humanity would cope with a second chance.

» Patricia Piccinini—In Another Life @ NZ International Arts Festival