NZ Visual Diary - entry 176
Guide Kaiārahi - Auckland Art Gallery
My image is a detail of a massive 10 metre sculpture by the New Zealand artist Reuben Paterson. Commissioned by the Auckland Art Gallery, the sculpture anchors the plaza of the 2011 addition to the gallery.
The gallery’s website explains that the inspiration for Paterson’s magnificent art work has its roots in Māori cosmology:
Paterson says his inspiration for the crystalline sculpture originated in the well-known legend of a phantom waka [war canoe] that appeared at Lake Tarawera 10 days before the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886.
‘In the early hours of 10 June 1886, our ancestral mountains Wāhanga, Ruawāhia and Tarawera split apart, spewing forth millions of tonnes of ash and debris.'
‘By floating this crystal waka above the Gallery’s pool, he appears magical – an apparition that floats in the sky while having a narrative linked closely to our own history. He guides us as an escort into unknown or unmapped territories, in much same way as the waka of our very descent and the migrational journeys to Aotearoa,’ says Paterson (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi).
Hovering above the Gallery’s forecourt pool like a compass needle in vertical orientation, the magnificent waka suggests navigation to worlds beyond our own. It also refers to navigators’ use of stars to traverse the vast Pacific Ocean to Aotearoa. 1
Auckland Art Gallery website < https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/page/reuben-patersons-guide-kaiarahi-launches-at-auckland-art-gallery-toi-o-tamaki?q=%2Fpage%2Freuben-patersons-guide-kaiarahi-launches-at-auckland-art-gallery-toi-o-tamaki >