Gina Ferguson
Gina Ferguson is a multi-disciplinary practising artist, and holds the position of Curator and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Design and Contemporary Arts, Creative Industries at Unitec in Auckland. She has exhibited in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Amsterdam, been a selected finalist and winner in national art awards, exhibited in numerous major national sculpture trails and has work in public and private collections in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her background in working collaboratively and the relationship between academia and practice informs her approach to art making. She works on both large and intimate scales, in a wide range of media, exploring site and materiality whereby the environment, responsivity, mnemonics and socio-cultural constructs are considered in relation to encounter and experience.
The impacts of mining (both virtual and physical) can be seen as a shift in values from a natural world to a seemingly unnatural world. In the pursuit of wealth and power, bitcoin can be considered the new mythical gold rush. Based on the 2025 Bitcoin Line Graph, Fool's Gold reflects on financial speculation, consumer desire, and the persistent pursuit of wealth at the expense of the natural world.
Pyrite (fool’s gold) is a common sulphide mineral found in the Earth’s crust often mistaken by novice speculators as real gold – implying a falsehood or deception. This work draws on the concept of the ha-ha, a concealed ditch or barrier that creates the illusion of an uninterrupted landscape, and the Land Art Movement, which uses the earth itself as artistic material. Embedded in the ground, it resembles a fault line or incision in the landscape, evoking the environmental, economic, and symbolic ruptures created by mining.