‘**Tauawhi Pīwakawaka**’ artwork (prints have sold out) at Wellington airport.
Photographed by **Judi Lapsley Miller**.

I’m slowly working to get my blog back up to date, and I wanted to document this wonderful opportunity I had last year in 2021. I was very excited when I was approached by Andrew Hagen at The Urban Art Foundation to participate in my first ever digital art exhibition – “Embrace the Dawn Chorus” – a collaboration between Predator Free Wellington, Zealandia, and The Urban Art Foundation. Its purpose was to draw attention to the amazing conservation work done by Predator Free Wellington, who have successfully eradicated pests from the Miramar Peninsula, and are working to create the first ever predator free capital city in the world. The beautiful native bird artworks were produced by six New Zealand artists - Judi Lapsley Miller, Niels Meyer-Westfeld, Chimp, Jeanette Blackburn, Sofia Minson and myself.

So with a great cause to be celebrating and the support from oOh!media, bird artwork started appearing all over New Zealand! It was screened on digital billboards big (and I mean very big!) and small from the Wellington airport, to Lambton Quay, Wellington train station, Porirua mall, and across 80+ locations NZ wide. I was delighted to receive photos from friends and family, sharing where my artwork was spotted.

Further info about the organisations involved

Predator Free Wellington

Their project area started in the Miramar Peninsula (the area beyond the Wellington Airport) and is working in stages toward Porirua. It is an area encompassing 30,000 hectares of urban and rural land, with an estimated 70,000 households! This is a huge undertaking, but they are having amazing successes and great community involvement to achieve their goals.

“An estimated 68,000 native birds are killed in New Zealand by introduced predators every night. By removing possums, rats and mustelids from the area, native species like tīeke (saddleback), hihi (stichbird), kākā, kākāriki and toutouwai (North Island robin), which are already naturally colonising suburbs near ZEALANDIA Te Māra a Tāne, will find safe habitats to thrive. While this project is focused on removing predators we hope that community groups will become inspired to pursue bird translocations as their suburbs become predator free.”

For more info or to be part of this project, see www.pfw.org.nz/

Zealandia Ecosanctuary

“ZEALANDIA is the world’s first fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary, with an extraordinary 500-year vision to restore a Wellington valley’s forest and freshwater ecosystems as closely as possible to their pre-human state. The 225 hectare (500+ acre) ecosanctuary is a groundbreaking conservation project that has reintroduced 18 species of native wildlife back into the area, some of which were previously absent from mainland New Zealand for over 100 years.” Zealandia ecosanctuary was named one of TIME's 100 Greatest Places of 2019.

To learn more about Zealandia, see www.visitzealandia.com

Urban Art Foundation

“Urban Art places two dimensional art created by New Zealand artists into city landscapes, via electronic billboards, courtesy of oOh! Media via their ‘Giving Back’ campaign. Our company goal is to present artwork to the public on a regular basis in at least three major New Zealand cities, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch with a minimum of 9 separate events or ‘showings’ per year.”

Learn more about the Urban Art Foundation, see https://urbanart.nz/about.html

Urban digital art gallery would not exist without the generous support of oOh!media and their "Giving Back to the Community " campaign. Thank you www.oohmedianz.com/

“Embrace the Dawn Chorus” artists

Judi Lapsley Miller
Niels Meyer-Westfeld
Chimp
Jeanette Blackburn
Sofia Minson