Economies of Deferral.

Economies of Deferral traces a story of development and abandonment from within Aotearoa’s energy industry, gathering artists from Taranaki, Aotearoa and abroad whose work spans the 1980s to the present. My contribution extends a long-term inquiry into the Think Big projects initiated under Robert Muldoon’s National Government (1975–84)—conceived to build self-reliance for the nation’s energy needs in the face of the oil crises of the 1970s, and casting a long shadow into the present.

Fragments of the Motunui Synthetic Petrol Plant Visitor Centre examines the Motunui Synthetic Fuels Plant, a centrepiece of Think Big. A colossal undertaking that required new roads and bridges to carry components to the site, the plant was heralded as a world first, intended to supply a third of the country’s petroleum needs by converting natural gas from the Māui field first to methanol, then to synthetic petrol. Opened in 1986, its synthetic petrol facilities closed in 1999 after a fall in petrol prices, with parts dismantled and sent to Japan to be scrapped; the plant has continued to produce methanol since.

The models that make up the installation were loaned by the site’s current owner, Methanex, from the plant’s visitor centre, closed to the public since 2018; this is the first time they have been seen by an audience since. Their displacement into the gallery through a process of negotiation gestures to the difficulty of capturing the region’s energy story within a stable narrative.

From the Minister of Energy features a 91-year-old Sir Bill Birch reading aloud letters he sent to individuals more than four decades earlier, during the carless days scheme, which ran from July 1979 to May 1980. As Minister of Energy from 1978 to 1984, Birch oversaw the implementation of carless days and many of the Think Big projects.