Gabbie Milne-Rodrigues is included in her own artwork.

One of 36 visual arts and design students to take part in a pop-up exhibition at EIT’s ideaschool, Gabbie Milne-Rodrigues transformed herself into a living work of art.

For her static performance, the second-year degree student held a pose at the two-hour opening of the 36//48 exhibition while submersed in non-biodegradable materials collected from Napier’s Marine Parade beach.

Passionate about the marine environment, Gabbie says local councils, organisations and clubs do a very good job in looking after Hawke’s Bay’s coastline.

“Most people care about the future of the sea and are careful that plastics, polystyrene and other toxic materials don’t end up in the marine ecosystem.  However, it has become apparent that the shift needs to happen at source.”

Gabbie points to bans in Hawaii on plastic bottles and California on single-use plastic bags.  There are safe alternatives to polystyrene and plastics, she says – “what is slow in coming is the will to use them”.

The 36//48 exhibition ran for just two days on campus and Gabbie says the challenge for her was keeping totally still at the opening.

“I am obviously a bit of a talker.  This performance was a silent one, but I am a doer as well as a talker.”

Moving to Hawke’s Bay after two years’ degree studies in Auckland, Gabbie decided to check out EIT.

“I was impressed with ideaschool and what it had to offer.  I’m interested in performance art and ideaschool staff were excited to hear about that.”

Living on Napier Hill, she walks the beach most days – a far cry from her childhood experience of growing up in Avondale where, as a nine-year-old, she took photos of a river polluted by industrial chemicals and sent them to a newspaper.

The 36//48 exhibition was a package exercise for the second-year Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design students, who organised themselves into committees to organise all aspects of the event.  While some designed and made invitations, others produced an audio visual promoting the event.  Gabbie was in a group curating the exhibition.

Programme coordinator Nigel Roberts says the cohort, the first to enrol in ideaschool’s project-based learning degree, benefited from a similar exercise in their first year.

“They’re an on-to-it group,” he says, “a very motivated group of students.”

Across Ideaschool, students are gearing up for end-of-year events.  The visual arts and design Graduate Exhibition and Music Performance are open entry events.  All tickets are taken for the Fashion Show and the Film Screening was held on Monday, 17 November at MTG.

• Ø Graduate Exhibition:  5.30pm, Friday, 21 November, ideaschool, EIT
• Ø Fashion Show:  6pm, Wednesday, 26 November, Trades Building, EIT
• Ø Music Performance:  8pm, Friday, 28 November, Shed 2, Napier.