Hannah Beehre
Collaborations
Postcard to Dr Jacoby
In the quiet dark a twisted tree stands. From within the painting firefly like lights appear and float and shift about the form. Noise from a viewer will startle and agitate the lights making their movements frenetic for a few moments before, reassured, they resume their secret work. If a viewer gets too close to the painting the lights will vanish entirely and only return cautiously once the danger has passed.
2010
Sublimation print, digital screen, sensors, software
1000 x 2200mm
collaboration with Aaron Beehre
Waters Above
Waters Below
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu
In “Waters above Waters Below” the Beehres built a huge digital camera obscura for the new temporary Art Gallery site at NG gallery Christchurch. Surveillance cameras focused on the nearby Red Zone where, following a series of violent earthquakes, the heart of the city was being deconstructed. The view was flipped, inverted, fish eyed and projected to fill the entire end wall of the gallery. The scene became strangely meditative, removed from the realities of demolition outside.
2012
digital projection, camera
3000 x 9000mm
collaboration with Aaron Beehre
Avon Lights
Scape Biennial
The Avon River meanders through the centre of the city, winding through gardens and past galleries before entering Christchurch’s outer suburbs on its way to the sea. The Avon Lights project was positioned under three of the footbridges crossing the river in different areas of the city. The lights were a fully submerged network, programmed to respond to noise on the bridge. Loud noises sent them darting away to extinguish, before cautiously returning to play en masse in the water below.
2008
LEDs, software, sensors
collaboration with Aaron Beehre

Dog Day Afternoon
Camp A Low Hum
Created for independent music festival Camp A Low Hum, Dog Day Afternoon was designed and made on site. A bright green algae filled duck pond on the former Health Camp site provided the backdrop. Photographed and moved indoors to an old squash court, the work was projected on the back wall, filling the space. In the night sky drifting sheets of lime green Aurora appeared and rippled when triggered by a viewers approach in the room. Erie green light filled the dark space and spilled into the hallway, paranormal plasma, generating a new haunting at the derelict site.
2008
digital projection, software, sensors
collaboration with Aaron Beehre
The Winter Rose
Christchurch Arts Festival
For the 2007 Festival of Arts the Beehres worked with the façade of the Christchurch Cathedral and the activity in the city’s most traversed outdoor space, the city square. Setting up motion sensors around the square the artists recorded the activity associated with foot traffic in front of the cathedral and converted this information into data. The data was converted into a visual form by computer, a swirling tangle of loops and fireflies, which was projected in the place of the cathedral’s famous Rose Window, which was in the process of being restored.
2007
digital projection, screen, software, sensors
collaboration with Aaron Beehre