Writ­ten by Nadia Free­man

Welling­ton’s newest and poten­tial­ly first dig­i­tal art space opened this month, and I am deeply appre­cia­tive of the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of Shan­non Bros­na­han Inglis and Delainy Jamahl. In an era when invest­ment in the arts is dwin­dling, launch­ing a ven­ture of this scale and qual­i­ty is inspir­ing. Ini­tia­tives like this infuse new ener­gy into a city and make me proud to call Te Whanganui-a-Tara home.

The Grid is cur­rent­ly run­ning a two-month tri­al fea­tur­ing three exhi­bi­tions by local dig­i­tal artists and com­posers. The inau­gur­al exhi­bi­tion, “Rivers of Wind” by Delainy Jamahl, is on dis­play until July 28th and includes orig­i­nal music by Rhi­an Shee­han and Ed Zuc­col­lo.

This new enter­prise is locat­ed in Wellington’s CBD on Hain­ing Street.  To vis­it, you need to book a tick­et for a spe­cif­ic time slot, but you’re free to come and go with­in your allot­ted peri­od. There’s no pres­sure to leave if you exceed your time.

“Rivers of Wind” is a trib­ute to Wellington’s noto­ri­ous wind. As the windi­est city in the world, embrac­ing the wind’s beau­ty rather than resist­ing it is a refresh­ing per­spec­tive. Delainy Jamahl has trans­formed eight years of weath­er data from Welling­ton Air­port into a stun­ning dis­play of mov­ing dig­i­tal art.

The exhi­bi­tion space includes a small side room with inter­ac­tive LED pan­els that explore Delainy’s con­cepts in depth. One pan­el is mount­ed on rails and can be moved side­ways, allow­ing view­ers to see dif­fer­ent sec­tions of a larg­er image, akin to a mov­ing win­dow. The inge­nu­ity of this set­up is impres­sive and pro­vides a unique, close-up view of the art­work.

The main exhi­bi­tion room is a spa­cious, square area sur­round­ed by pro­jec­tor screens. It fea­tures cush­ions and a small bench for seat­ing, ensur­ing that vis­i­tors can com­fort­ably view the art from any posi­tion. The atmos­phere was calm, with vis­i­tors qui­et­ly enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence with­out dis­turb­ing oth­ers.

“Rivers of Wind” is both lit­er­al­ly and metaphor­i­cal­ly breath­tak­ing. Delainy has visu­al­ized eight years of wind data from Welling­ton Air­port with thou­sands of three-dimen­sion­al lines that rep­re­sent wind speed, direc­tion, gusts, and tem­per­a­ture. The data is dis­played at the top left of the images, allow­ing those inter­est­ed in the sci­ence to explore the details. Per­son­al­ly, I found lying back and immers­ing myself in the expe­ri­ence, accom­pa­nied by the beau­ti­ful son­ic land­scape, to be deeply sat­is­fy­ing. The stun­ning visu­al and audi­to­ry expe­ri­ence was tru­ly awe-inspir­ing.

The entire piece lasts 48 min­utes, but it’s so cap­ti­vat­ing that time seems to fly by. I could have stayed for hours and will cer­tain­ly return. I’m eager­ly antic­i­pat­ing the next two exhi­bi­tions and am hope­ful that The Grid will become a per­ma­nent fix­ture in Welling­ton, offer­ing a must-see expe­ri­ence for vis­i­tors to our city.

The Grid is open Tues to Sun from 11am until 8/9pm from now until the 1st of Sep­tem­ber

Rivers of Wind is run­ning until July 28th.

Fol­low­ing exhi­bi­tions will be

The Art of Black Grace: 1 Aug until 4 Aug (by Neil Ieremia) and

Nowadeus: from 7 Aug until 1 Sep (by Tim Christie & The Grid).

Book your vis­it at https://www.thegridartspace.co.nz/

Silhouettes of three people on chairs in front of large projected image of digital animation called Rivers of Wind