WAYNE Barrar has an unusual photograph – it shows tonnes of koi carp fish being ground up in a blender to make bait, after a clean up in the Waikato.
The acclaimed Kiwi photographer with an interest in the effects of globalisation on native species has been snapping pictures of koi carp to raise awareness about their detrimental effect on New Zealand.
His photographs, taken both in New Zealand and overseas, will be on display at City Gallery this week as part of exhibition Community Garden, which explores ideas of community, behavioural change, and environment. Barrar is one of four artists involved.
Some of his photos were taken at the Koi Carp Classic Bowhunting annual event in the Waikato.
“Teams of people from New Zealand and around the world come to shoot these koi carp in lakes and rivers with bows and arrows,” he says. “It’s partly about public awareness, but it’s also a clean-up. Last year more than five tonnes of the fish were removed.”
After they’ve been killed, the carp, which can reach up to 20 pounds in weight, are put into a grinder, “mulched” up, and are used for fishing berley.
“They’re dead at that stage, so no-one felt too bad about it, it’s recycling,” Barrar laughs.
“They turned up in the 1960s and were probably released on purpose. They make the water go turbid and muddy by going to the bottom, sucking up mud and spitting it out, making it [inhabitable] for other fish.”
Populations of koi carp also grow extremely quickly and take over the habitats of New Zealand native fish. Antarctica is the only continent in the world where koi carp aren’t found, Barrar says.
Ironically, although the fish are abhorred in New Zealand, they are prized in other countries such as Singapore; where they can sell for up to $100,000 a fish.
“There, they are bred and collected for elaborate ponds inside obviously expensive houses,” he says. “So there’s the one extreme of beautification of [koi carp], and then you get the opposite here when they get mulched.”
Barrar’s koi carp pictures are part of a bigger project he is working on, which captures New Zealand bio security issues.
Other artists featured at the City Gallery exhibition have equally quirky subjects.
Jenny Gillam is bringing two different types of New Zealand native stick insects into the gallery, and will visit each day to monitor and chart their progress.
Visual artist Rob Cherry has created a perimeter around the gallery using plastic throwaways he found at Evans Bay, while photographer Andy Palmer is displaying pictures he took over a 15-month period visiting Tanera Park’s community garden.
Community Garden, Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery, May 7-June 20.