Author(s): Gregory O'Brien

NZ Non- fiction

Always song in the water is an imaginative exploration of Aotearoa's oceanic environment. This is the new, expanded edition of the now out-of-print 2019 book of the same title. The new exhibition and its accompanying book celebrates-in images, words and sound-our connectedness with the wider Pacific region, its peoples, flora, fauna and the expansive waters which both inspire and define us. It is 11 years since the New Zealand Maritime Museum held the ground-breaking exhibition 'Kermadec-Nine Artists in the South Pacific', curated and co-ordinated by Gregory O'Brien, with Bronwen Golder of the Pew Environment Group. The new exhibition and this book Always song in the water returns to the themes, ongoing concerns and unresolved issues of the earlier project. In essence, the 2011 Kermadec voyage never ended. O'Brien and the other artists who voyaged to Rangitahua Raoul Island on HMNZS Otago never really disembarked from the ship that took them north. They think of themselves as still out there, on the ocean, absorbing its energy, listening to its oceanic songs and confronting the environmental issues which have only increased in urgency over the ensuing decade.