Speakers
We have confirmed a wide range of International and New Zealand speakers who will present a programme of varied and thought-provoking perspectives on 'The Power of Landscape'
Opening Address
Vincent Ward
Film director, New Zealand and Australia
Vincent Ward has produced, executive-produced, written and directed feature films since his early twenties.
Ward’s films have earned critical acclaim and festival attention whilst achieving a wide, eclectic audience. Vigil (1984), The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) and Map of the Human Heart (1993) were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between them they garnered close to 30 national and international awards (including the Grand Prix at festivals in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United States). His film What Dreams May Come won an Academy Award for visual effects.
His latest feature film Rain of the Children (2008) was voted by the audience, from 250 feature films, to win the Grand Prix at Poland’s largest film festival. The film was also nominated for best director in New Zealand and Australia.
Ward was awarded an Order of New Zealand Merit in 2007.
Currently he works as a painter, writer, and director and lives in Australia and New Zealand.
'Conference listener'
Chris Laidlaw
Radio New Zealand 'Sunday' host, Greater Wellington Regional Council councillor
Chris Laidlaw, well-known to National Radio listeners for his Sunday Morning show, will be the ‘conference listener’, who will reflect on the topics and issues raised in the conference programme during the final session.
In his diverse career, Chris has also been a columnist, author, regional councillor, race relations conciliator, television commentator, Rhodes Scholar, ambassador, All Black and Member of Parliament. As the radio host of Sunday Morning with Chris has a reputation as a thoughtful and perceptive commentator. He uses his wealth of experience and knowledge to present a stimulating magazine style programme including current affairs documentaries, media analysis, panel discussions, commentaries and in-depth debates with significant personalities.
International Speakers
Klaus BondamDeputy Mayor in the City of Copenhagen
Klaus’ goal has been to champion initiatives in Copenhagen to transform it from the ‘grey, dull and worn out city’ of 20 years ago to a city recognised as a world leader in sustainability. He has led the drive to develop Copenhagen into the world’s best urban environment by 2015. Bondam cites the work of urbanist Jan Gehl as being a key inspiration in achieving this goal.
Professor Richard Weller
Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Western Australia
Richard is renowned for combining teaching, research and practice. He received an excellence in teaching award from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2003 and his most important built work is the national Museum of Australia in Canberra.
In over 20 years of design practice Professor Weller has received a consistent stream of international, design competition awards. His work has been widely exhibited including in a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1998) and at the Venice Biennale (2004). Professor Weller has published over 50 papers and given over 80 invited presentations on contemporary urban design and landscape architecture. His work has been published as a monograph by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2005.
Throughout his career Professor Weller has worked selectively on significant and often large scale urban projects around the world. His most recent research, funded by the Australian Research Council, concerned the creation of alternative urban growth scenarios for the city of Perth by the year 2050 and is the subject of his latest book, ‘Boomtown 2050’: Scenarios for a rapidly growing city. Currently Professor Weller is analyzing the implications of Australia’s predicted 21st century population growth from a landscape architectural perspective.
Professor Weller consults as both a designer and a reviewer of major projects.
Marc van Grieken
Landscape Architect and Director Landscape Use Consultants, UK
Marc qualified as a landscape architect in the Netherlands and worked there as a landscape architect before joining Land Use Consultants in their Glasgow office in 1995. He has worked on a wide range of environmental impact assessments for many types of development projects such as wind farms, siting of transmission lines , and other infrastructure. He has also worked on land reclamation, integrated rural development and urban renewal projects primarily in Scotland but also in other parts of the UK. Marc has also lectured in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Heriot Watt University. In 2005 Marc spent a month in New Zealand investigating and advising on New Zealand recent wind farm developments and he the New Zealand Wind Energy Association has invited him back to be a keynote speaker at the 2010 NZWEA Conference in Palmerston North where he will speak on environmental aspects of wind farm development in the UK. NZWEA have kindly agreed for Marc to also be a presenter at our NZILA conference.
New Zealand Speakers
Raewyn Peart
Senior Policy Analyst, Environmental Defence Society.
Raewyn is a lawyer and has worked in the field of resource management for 15 years. Raewyn is the author of the influential Landscape Planning Guide for Peri-urban and Rural Areas and the recently published, Castles in the Sand: What’s Happening to the New Zealand Coast:
Dr Janet Stephenson
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Geography Department, University of Otago.
Dr Stephenson’s qualitative social/environmental research currently focuses on individuals’ and communities’ perceptions of landscape; the impact of wind farms on landscapes; drivers and constraints on behaviours in the energy sector; and management of resources in which Maori have an interest. She is co-editor/author of Beyond the Scene: Landscape Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand, which is soon to be published and will be launched at the beginning of the conference.
Professor Harvey Perkins
Professor of Human Geography in the Faculty of Environment, Society and Design at Lincoln University.
Professor Perkins has research interests in the broad area of urban and rural transformation and its management. This research examines elements of social, economic and environmental change in urban, peri-urban and rural areas under neo-liberal and late-modern conditions. His research has been grounded in a series of case studies, focused most recently on rural change in Central Otago, urban intensification in Christchurch and the role of real estate agency in the making of urban place meaning.
Professor Steve Wratten
Professor in the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University.
Professor Wratten is a researcher and award-winning teacher. He is currently running a six-year research programme on biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable agriculture funded by the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology. His research includes habitat-manipulation techniques for enhanced biological pest control, assessment of the economic value of farmland ecosystem services, an ecologically based ‘greening’ programme in the Waipara Valley vineyard area, and the creation of an organic research farm at Lincoln University.
Dr Huhana Smith
Artist, environmentalist and researcher
Huhana Smith is interested in Mäori approaches to environmental protection and enhancement. Formerly Senior Curator Maori at Te Papa, she is a practicing artist and an active environmentalist. Of Ngāti Tukorehe, she is affiliated to Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga and is Chairperson of environmental resource unit, Taiao Raukawa. Huhana is working on a collaborative research project called Manaaki Taha Moana at the New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics at Massey University, investigating ecological decline within valued Mäori coastal and cultural landscapes, and is a Research Associate for Te Papa.
Jacqui Foley
Oral Historian
A free lance oral historian. Jacqui lives in North Otago, and works both in her local area and further afield. Her work ranges from individual life story histories to topic-focused projects for museums, trusts and other organizations. One of her own local projects was a series of interviews documenting the effects on the community of Meridian Energy's proposed hydro scheme on the Waitaki River, 'Project Aqua'
Rachael Selby
Director of Social Work and Social Policy, Massey University
Of Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Pareraukaw descent, Rachael is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health and Social Services at Massey University, a kaiawhina at Te Wananga-o-Raukawa, oral history researcher and President of the Executive of NOHANZ (National Oral History Association of New Zealand). She is chair of the Ngatokowaru Marae committee in Levin. Her oral history research has focussed on interviewing Mäori women and on recording the memories of hapu elders and the impacts of environmental changes on hapu and iwi. Rachael is a writer and editor and lives in Otaki.
Dianne Buchan
Social scientist, Corydon Consultants
Dianne is the Managing Director of Corydon Consultants Ltd, a Wellington-based company specialising in social research, social impact assessment, community consultation and facilitation. She has managed a wide variety of projects involving multidisciplinary teams, (including landscape architects) and over the past 25 years has worked on a wide range of projects throughout New Zealand and the Pacific. She has been involved with the development of the Wellington Waterfront for 15 years - as chair of the Waterfront Community Consultative Committee (CCC), as a member of the Leadership Group that drew up the Waterfront Framework, and last year as a member of the judging panel for last year’s Outer T Ideas Competition. She has been a member of the Wellington Civic Trust since 1998 and served for 7 years as the Trust’s Chair. In 2008, the Trust together with Waterfront Watch appealed the regional council’s decision to allow the construction of a hotel on the central wharf in the Wellington harbour and won the case leading to a rethink on what development is appropriate on this site.
Dianne is a member of the NZ Planning Institute, the Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ) and the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA). She is a certified RMA Commissioner and a certified environment practitioner (CEnvP). She has a BA in Sociology and a Masters of Public Policy.
Kingsley Baird
Visual artist and Associate Professor, School of Visual & Material Culture, College of Creative Arts, Massey University.
Kingsley’s primary research is a longstanding and continuous investigation of memory, cross-cultural memorialisation, and public art through making artefacts and writing. Major examples of his work are Diary Dageboek, an artwork exhibited at ‘In Flanders Field’ Museum in Belgium, while artist in residence in 2007; The Cloak of Peace Te Korowai Rangimarie, a sculpture commissioned for Nagasaki Peace Park, Japan, 2006; The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior Te Toma o Te Toa Matangaro, Wellington, 2004; and The New Zealand Memorial, Canberra, 2001
Wayne Barrar
Photographer and Associate Professor and Head of Photography, School of Fine Arts, Massey University.
Wayne has regularly exhibited his photography since 1984. His work is held in most major New Zealand public gallery collections and a survey book of his work, Shifting Nature, was published by University of Otago University Press in 2001. His long-term project An Expanding Subterra will be shown at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in early 2010. His work is also known overseas, where it features in the currently touring Picturing Eden exhibition curated by the International Museum of Photography and Film / George Eastman House, USA, and was included in the Nevada Museum of Art international touring exhibition, The Altered Landscape.
John Potter
Senior landscape architect and Principal, Boffa Miskell Ltd.
John’s landscape architecture career has spanned 20 years, in both the UK and New Zealand, and has focused on the urban landscape. He has spent the last eight years at Boffa Miskell, Auckland, where he has worked extensively with the Auckland City Council on a range of mainstreet, urban, CBD streetscape and reserve improvement and up-grade projects. John’s oversaw the design and construction of the recently completed St Patrick’s Square Project in Auckland, and he is heavily involved in the proposed introduction of ‘Shared Space’ to several streets within Auckland’s CBD.
Don Ross QSM
Scientist & Chairman of New Zealand National Conservation Authority.
Don has spent much of his working life in agricultural research, while managing his own farm at Brookfields. Don was a key member of the team responsible for the government’s Rabbit and Land Management Programme (1989 – 1995). He took the lead role in establishing the NZ Landcare Trust in 1996 and, as CEO from 1996- 2007, established a national network of project coordinators to promote sustainable land management through community involvement. There are now around 150 groups working across the country.
Bishop Richard Randerson CNZM
Former Dean and Assistant Bishop of Auckland
Ordained as an Anglican priest in Auckland, Richard has served internationally as an industrial chaplain, inner city priest, social justice officer, bishop and cathedral dean. In 2000 Richard was appointed by the NZ Government to a four-person Royal Commission on Genetic Modification.
Issues of poverty and justice, race and gender, conflict and peace-making, and more latterly the environmental crisis the world is facing, have all been part of the context Richard has addressed. He is the author of three books on ethics and economics, faith and spirituality. In 2004 he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM).
Fraser Clark
CEO New Zealand Wind Energy Association (NZWEA)
Fraser has overall responsibility for NZWEA’s activities in promoting, encouraging and enabling the uptake of wind energy in New Zealand, both within the wind industry and to a wide range of stakeholders including central and local government, regulators and the public. He also leads NZWEA’s involvement in RMA activities and has represented the Association at numerous resource consent and plan change hearings and before the Environment Court. Fraser has wide experience in the energy sector from his previous roles in power generation projects, in the electricity market and in electricity end-use.
Rau Hoskins
Architect, Design Tribe Architecture
Of Nga Puhi descent Rau is a director of Tribe Architecture which is dedicated to serving the needs and aspirations of the Mäori community through papakainga, educational and iwi/marae-based projects. Rau is currently coordinating the Te Aranga Mäori Cultural Landscape Design Strategy, which seeks to provide practical tools for iwi and for local and regional government to collaboratively enhance the expression of Mäori identity in both the natural and built environments. Rau also lectures at the UNITEC School of Architecture and coordinates Te Hononga, the kaupapa Mäori strand of the school.
Alan Titchener
Landscape Architect, Titchener Monzingo Aitken Ltd
Alan is of Ngai Tahu descent and is a director of Titchener Monzingo Aitken Ltd Landscape Architects. Alan has a special interest in the connections between landscape architecture and Maori culture. He was a co-convenor of the 1987 NZILA Conference entitled E Rua Nga Iwi, Kotahi Ano Te Whenua (Two Cultures, One Landscape) which for the first time explored Maori values and design considerations with respect to the landscape and its planning, design, use and management. In 1990 he assisted with the development of a strategy for the incorporation of Maori values into the teaching of landscape architecture at Lincoln University. Alan participated in the evolution of the Te Aranga Maori Cultural Landscapes Strategy and is a Foundation Member of Nga Aho, a collective of Maori Design Professionals formed to give effect to the Te Aranga Strategy. He is Interim Chair of a Maori Landscape Architects Roopu recently formed under the umbrella of Nga Aho. Alan is also a Past President and Fellow of the NZILA and is currently the NZILA Delegate to IFLA (the International Federation of Landscape Architects).
