Wednesday - STEAMPUNK!!!!

Wednesday dawned and we jumped in the car and headed off to Oamaru to visit the Steampunk Exhibition and stay with Sally and Phil, who had kindly offered us a place to stay on the basis of an hours conversation at the Nova Cafe before the Ireland v Italy match in Dunedin three weeks ago.  We had no real idea what to expect there in Oamaru and they were not sure we would accept their offer, but I can safely say that the world would be a better place if more people accepted invitations to visit from complete strangers in bars!








Before heading up there, our knowledge of Oamaru was limited to this:

• it is one and a half hours drive north of Dunedin
• it is famous in Dunedin for its limestone - Oamaru Stone - which is used as a contrast trim in many magnificent Dunedin bluestone buildings (including the railway station)
• the town seems a bit boring from State Highway 1 and you don't really feel like turning off to explore the town centre
• they have a Steampunk festival which is running right now and finishes on 27 November
• Sally and Phil live there

Oh and this vital piece of information:

A mere 36 hours later we could write reams ..... oh all right ..... we will wax lyrical AND write reams about one of the great, undiscovered places to visit in South Island.  And we hope that this blog can help fix the second adjective.

The town expansion during the late 1800s was fuelled partly by the Otago gold rush, but mostly by the boom in agriculture that followed.  However, its harbour is not as safe and usable as Dunedin and it missed out in seaborne trade to its southern neighbour.  It was, at the end of the 19th century, a bigger city than Los Angeles!  Money drifted away from Oamaru in the 1900s but what was left behind was a wonderful legacy of magnificent (and now magnificently preserved) Victorian buildings.  These include complete rows of adjoining buildings such as banks, municipal buildings, churches (so far, so good, but many towns have these architectural legacies) but in addition there is a very charming opera house and an entire section of commercial and mercantile buildings, many of which house operating businesses or clubs. Oamaru town currently has a population of roughly 12,000 people and regional Oamaru a population of roughly 22,000.

The heritage precinct of Oamaru, mostly Victorian buildings built of white Oamaru limestone

The local heritage society and the Whitestone Trust have laboured long and hard over many years to preserve, restore and keep these lovely buildings alive.  From some of that labour of love sprang forth the Steampunk Festival, now in its third year, which has stimulated the creative juices of many of the local residents and which has attracted regional and international entries this year.

Steampunk, for those not in the know, is a genre of art that imagines a technologically advanced, Victorian society.  Rather than the ubiquitous electricity of today, devices would be powered by steam, gas, or aetheric vibrations (you'll have to look that one up yourselves), but the clothing, optimism, and formality of Victorian culture remains.  Several authors, film makers, designers and many, many fans around the world have contributed to the rise of the genre over the last ten to fifteen years.

The exhibition is held in the beautiful Forrester Gallery in the Bank of New South Wales building in the main street of Oamaru.  Photographs cannot do this exhibition justice. We have a couple of photos but won't publish them here out of respect for the creators and their copyright. So you will just have to get on a plane to NZ and go there and see it for yourself so you don't miss out. Or you will have to lobby your local arts philanthropist to have this exhibition tour, because seriously, this is art that deserves a worldwide audience.
Every item is so engaging. There is a great marriage between each fantastical object and its accompanying cleverly-crafted written commentary card. There are fluffy creatures, ray guns, fantasmegorical timepieces, dirigibles, motorbikes, steam-operated time machines, time traveller apothecary kits, intergalactic mail services, lunar safari equipment etc etc.  The displays are spread through three rooms on different floors. It takes one or two hours to peruse all the items in reasonable detail and if you need a break, the Steam cafe next door makes excellent coffee. And incredibly, this exhibition is free, thanks to the many sponsors who have supported it.

But wait, there's more. Because there are also some hugely eye-catching, imaginative external exhibits in the median strip of the main street, outside the Gallery.




































And also around the corner, on the corner of Itchen and Tyne Streets, there is a building called Steampunk HQ with a simply amazing train engine frontispiece in its forecourt and when you feed it two $2 coins, steam belches forth from its carby tubes, the crossing bells ring and fire springs out of its chimney like some damned missile-bearing vision from the apocalypse:

Steampunk HQ close up

Steampunk HQ, distance view for perspective

 

It is one thing to become so readily engrossed and swept along in the vision and originality of the pieces offered up for exhibition (both inside and outside the gallery) but it is another thing entirely to be able to view these items in the correct architectural setting, because the Victorian precinct of Oamaru is the perfect context and backdrop for this festival with its fantastic array of intact streetscapes. There will be more discussion of Oamaru's Victorian architecture and heritage in tomorrows blog because today we wanted to focus on the wonderments of the exhibition.

It is a great tribute to all the volunteers, sponsors and organisers that these buildings have been revitalised and preserved for the future.  It is also fantastic to see such a vibrant expansion of a new art genre with lots of new ideas flooding in to expand and grow the story of Steampunk.

In the evening ,we went for dinner at the Loan and Merc, a huge restaurant-cum-dining hall on the ground floor of one of the largest Victorian buildings in town and this business is run by Fleur (of Fleur's Place in Moeraki).  This building has three floors with five metre high ceilings and there is a lovely art gallery on the top floor. We had a great evening at the L&M before retiring to Phil and Sally's to solve the world's problems (again).

Loan & Merc entrance

Loan & Merc building (former warehouse)