Sam Mahon (born ) is an artist and author living in

Waikari Waikari is a small town in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. Its Anglican parish church is the Church of Ascension, 79 Princes Street, Waikari, where William Orange was vicar in the 1920s. The New Zealand Ministry for Cul ...

in North Canterbury in the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasma ...

of New Zealand. He is the son of Peter Mahon, a lawyer notable for the

Mt Erebus disaster The Mount Erebus disaster occurred on 28 November 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 (TE-901) flew into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board. Air New Zealand had been operating scheduled An ...

inquiry.

Works

Sam Mahon has become involved with preventing water pollution in the

Canterbury Region Canterbury ( mi, Waitaha) is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of The region in its current fo ...

and is using art to highlight the issue. In late October 2009, Mahon made a bust of Environment Minister Nick Smith out of dairy-cow dung in order to publicise the campaign to stop the

Hurunui River The Hurunui River is the fourth largest of the four principal rivers in north Canterbury, New Zealand, with a catchment area of . The river flows from the eastern side of the Southern Alps, to the Pacific Ocean. Geography The head of the Hurunu ...

from being dammed for irrigation. He later sold the sculpture on

online auction An online auction (also electronic auction, e-auction, virtual auction, or eAuction) is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with ...

website

Trade Me Trade Me is New Zealand's largest online auction and classifieds website. Managed by Trade Me Ltd., the site was founded in 1999 by New Zealand entrepreneur Sam Morgan (entrepreneur), Sam Morgan, who sold it to John Fairfax Holdings, Fairfax in ...

, where he described the sculpture or the subject as "light and hollow and highly polished". In March 2010, the National Government passed legislation that saw elected members of Environment Canterbury replaced with government-appointed commissioners. Three months later at a protest rally in Cathedral Square, the largest protest in the Square in years, Mahon installed a stone cairn opposite

ChristChurch Cathedral ChristChurch Cathedral, also called Christ Church Cathedral and (rarely) Cathedral Church of Christ, is a deconsecrated Anglican cathedral in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It was built between 1864 and 1904 in the centre of the city, ...

's entrance. Protesters were encouraged to bring a river stone, and the cairn remains to this day. In the lead up to the 2011 election he created a painting of prime minister

John Key Sir John Phillip Key (born 9 August 1961) is a New Zealand retired politician who served as the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2008 to 2016 and as Leader of the New Zealand National Party from 2006 to 2016. After resigning from bo ...

dead in an alley. The image was made into a game on his website where visitors could guess who killed the PM by watching video clips embedded on the page. Those who guess correctly will be announced on election day (26 November) and be eligible to win prizes, including a cast bronze of a dying dove, another work by Mahon which he describes as "a metaphor for dying hopes".

Bibliography

*''The Year of the Horse'' (2002) *''The Water Thieves'' (2006) *''My Father's Shadow'' (2008) *''Franzi and the great terrain robbery'' (2011)

References

External links

sammahon.comProfile
at the Centre of Contemporary Art (COCA) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahon, Sam New Zealand artists New Zealand writers People from Waikari Living people Year of birth missing (living people)

Works

Bibliography

See also

References

External links