What if the Gold needs to Stay in the Ground?

By Kirstie McKinnon | Posted: Tuesday Mar 03, 2026

The installation, and a poetry reading

We are now at day 11. We are here for 42 days.

Today, day 11, at 125 George Street, a visitor said, ‘I love the question, I feel it in here,’ she placed her hands over her heart, ‘It is not either or,’ she said, ‘It opens the space.’

I look up to the central image at the apex of the installation, the drawing Mu Dra, by my sister, artist Johanna Qiao-Tong. An image of hands over heart.

Months before the installation opened, whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the river, the Clutha, Mata Au, the deep juggernaut of turquoise, the artery of our island: calling.

The Dunstan Ranges are the Clutha’s mountains.

Imagine rain falling in the hills, running down.

What if there was a mistake? What if arsenic from a mine’s toxic tailings in the hills ran down into Mata Au?

Grief is what happens when love is the ground.

Continue reading: What if the Gold needs to Stay in the Ground?