Lake Fill I - performance works to mark the first filling of hydro Lake Dunstan, Clyde, New Zealand by Lloyd Godman - © Lloyd Godman

Performance to mark the first filling of hydro lake Dunstan, Clyde, New Zealand - Lloyd Godman Lake Fill I - May 1992

By fate, there in the broken autumn grasses, in proximity to the performance site, lay the bleached bones of a dead animal, a rabbit. A poor creature removed against its own will to a foreign land in a thoughtless act, and now, because of a saturated population and the effects of the associated erosion, its kind are despised and exterminated as a pest to this unfamiliar environment. The rabbit was a national symbol of an earlier environmental miscalculation!  As a homage and with utmost providence, these few humble dry bones were gathered from their secret position and arranged with prominence, on the hard river silt at a place above the head of the alien white figure; with the rotting skull as a centre piece of the arrangement. Then with this simple but metaphorical installation complete, I gradually moved towards the water's edge, with a camera surrounded by the insulation protection of an underwater perspex housing, firmly gripped by both hands against my chest.

This instrument was used as it should be, in the ritual of image-making, to take photographs from the work site, across the ever-rising lake. These would be records of a sublime or ridiculous and unique event. Over a period of perhaps 20 minutes, I slowly moved through the new and surprisingly sticky mud of the shallows out into the deeper waters of the filling reservoir. As I proceeded into these cold uncertain depths, a series of photographs was taken until the camera lens disappeared completely under the surface of this juvenile and virgin lake. At this point, I was well free from the secure touch of the old land that had only hours ago surrendered to become the new lake floor, and there I drifted, betrayed by this false vestal of tranquil water, controlled by powers beyond itself.