In his drawing for a ‘black window’, Ralph Hotere plays with language to pointed effect. Across a night view of the fragile coastal landscape at the mouth of Otago Harbour, Hotere writes the word ‘Aramoana’ backwards – as if to be read by someone outside. In the inset photograph in the foreground, a sign declaring the future presence of an aluminium smelter in this landscape has been vandalised with a splash of Hotere’s trademark black paint. Beneath it a toxic spill of silver ink provides a warning vision of environmental damage. (Brought to light, November 2009)