date : 11.5.2012
location : north end, cabin of the ship lily
time : 12:15pm
duration : 23:00
notes : shipwrecked on kapiti island in 1920 near okupe lagoon, the lily appears in a few historical photographs of the time. using these as wayfinding devices proved somewhat fruitless, no trace remains at the site these photographs indicate, although the most substantial evidence of the event in question exists in plain sight : the salvaged cabin of the brig has been on land since the stranding, at some point being shifted very close to the family residences. n the elapsed span its small structure has been put to various uses, for a while as a children's playhut, and currently as a storage space for items pertaining to the community's beehives.
the site's complex material history is disguised inside a pragmatic present, stuffed almost full with odds and ends, old combs and hive trays, its century-old wooden structure rattling with the winds and the kaka stomping about on the roof. climbing into it was difficult but eventually rewarded by the discovery of a small bird's nest, presumably once belonging to a swallow, secured with mud and fibre to the back wall, under a rafter.
this radio programme involved the mini fm transmission of silences, recorded within the cabin with binaural microphones, back into its structure, in combination with recently recorded sounds of the site of the now demolished kapiti island lighthouse, once located along the same coast as the shipwreck. the transmission was recorded live onto magnetic audio tape. once concluded, the tape was was wound up and placed into the birds nest, to further interact with the materiality of the site. tape was retrieved from the nest on sunday 27 may, 11:05am.
