Originally conceived for a commission that never eventuated, Jim McMurtry is one half of the cutsie Disney-like pair of bunnies that were destined to evolve into five-metre monsters frolicking in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square. His other half, Cosmo McMurtry, is in the collection of Jim Barr and Mary Barr. A playful and witty depiction of an animal widely deemed to be vermin, Jim McMurtry has large eyes, cute whiskers and non-threatening pose, which speak more of Bambi than of Watership Down, but then our relationship to small furry animals and the environment will always be contentious. Introduced by the colonists, rabbits were declared noxious pests in New Zealand in the 1880s. Parekowhai’s stylised rabbits explore the impact of colonialism on Maori and the issue of how people have transformed the land. Controversial public outrage that something described as flippant could grace the most important and formal centre of conservative Christchurch, meant the works were never completed to scale for the site they were intended to grace. With the help of the Gwangju Biennale, Parekowhai has gone on to make inflatable versions of the bunnies in woven nylon substrate, blown up like a child’s bouncy castle. One or the other of them has since graced the foyers of galleries worldwide, their air compressors humming happily and delighting the child in all of us. While their high kitsch wins popular appeal, the appearance of both bunnies is more benevolence than malevolence. Jim, of course, is poleaxed, his little mouth agape, somewhere between sleep and death, and we still wait to see him and Cosmo shown together as was always intended. EMMA FOX