Safe House

Artist: Karen Strachan
Year: SOTG 2007
Materials: Recycled boards and rope

This house with its weathered boards and aged corrugated iron is suggestive of the quintissential structure we see throughout the New Zealand landscape. Its shape is also reminiscent of a lighthouse: a form suggesting coastal remoteness and a sence of being alone. Tying the house to the land is an attempt to keep it safe. The unreachable door, the lack of windows and the familiar-yet-uknown, blends to give a sense of New Zealand that stays behind closed doors. A safe house, for those who do not enter.