100% (??) Ugly New Zealand

I am very tired of the use of "100% Pure" branding when New Zealand's water quality is declining.

However I have the antidote!

It is this article in the Sunday Star Times by Grant Smithies. Smithies points refreshingly to this collection of photos titled Ugly New Zealand.

Smithies writes;

Site founder Ralf Hebecker moved from Germany to Dunedin in 2006 to work as a design tutor at Otago University. He was disappointed to discover New Zealand had been misrepresented as a blemish-free natural wonderland, and set about collecting photos of the less agreeable sides of the place to add balance to the "postcard perfect" national myth.

and

With admirable teutonic bluntness, Hebecker's blog acknowledges that New Zealand's built environment frequently appalls the eye. His site celebrates the mundane, the shabby, the poorly designed, the cheap and loveless, and revels in the fact that a picture speaks a thousand words.

Brilliant and a must-read!

What can I do but attempt to display my own visual twisted love letters to the country I love?


Sign advising dog owners of responsible dog effluent rules, Lambton Quay, Wellington, 11 May 2011.


The banality of street signs, Allington Road, Karori Wellington, 13 June 2011.