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From the Deep
Wellington 2019
Claire O'Loughlin, Marcus McShane
The ocean is an alien place, one where we can’t survive. The floors of our oceans are less-well mapped than the surface of mars, yet the ocean is right there, a world much larger than ours, that contains four-fifths of all life. Yet we’re careless with it, we lose things to it. And sometimes it loses things to us. From The Deep takes as it’s starting point the whale strandings that are frequent on the coasts of Aotearoa, and the ways in which the experience of a stranding has affected the lives of people caught up in one. Short pieces of new writing gathered from individuals and communities who have been affected by strandings are collecting in waterproof lightboxes along the high-tide line of wellington’s harbour, drifting and changing and waiting for people to discover them at night. From The Deep is about community, loss, and contact with the deep.
Claire O’Loughlin is a writer and theatre-maker from Wellington. She is a founding member of experimental performance company Binge Culture, and Co-Director of their participatory street-theatre show Whales, an inactment of a whale stranding.
Claire was born and grew up on a small sailing yacht and sailed around the
world with her family, returning to NZ when she was 15 years old. In 2017 she
wrote a memoir of her sailing childhood for her Masters in Creative Writing at
the International Institute of Modern Letters and was awarded the Jean Squire
Project Scholarship. The sea is common thread in all of Claire’s work.
Marcus McShane is one of New Zealand’s most prolific lighting designers, having completed over 400 designs and installation works for theatre, museums and galleries around NZ. His designs have been presented internationally in Australia, China, New York, Venice and more. Marcus has won numerous design awards, most recently the Judges’ Choice Award at the Bay of Plenty Awards, for his permanent outdoor interactive lighting artwork Wash, situated on the Tauranga waterfront. An avid cyclist, vegetarian and writer, Marcus’ works interview text, light and environmental themes in innotative and provocative ways.
Partners in life as well as art, Claire and Marcus have collaborated on many projects together, including Nests (NZ Festival 2016 and Light Nelson 2018) and The Dead Writers Retreat (Basement Theatre and Lōemis 2018).
Christie O’Loughlin (graphic and website designer), and more to come
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