Ferns; 1998

Overnighted in Wellington for the two day meeting which ended late this afternoon. So my run this morning was in Wellington. Trotted out to the Basin Reserve, which was still fairly much shrouded in darkness.

By the time I came back to the central city the sun was rising behind thick cloud banks. I chose to go through Civic Square, an open space between the Wellington Town Hall, the Wellington City Art Gallery, and the Wellington Library. The fourth side of the 'square' leads onto the Sea to City bridge connecting this area to the waterfront.

Suspended 14 m above the ground is Ferns, by Neil Dawson, a 3.4 metre diameter sphere of silvered leaves. As well as being a symbol of New Zealand (the silver fern), it is "a dream of a perfect ecology, a still point in a turning world, and a masterpiece of public art". At least so goes the puff on a Wellington City site. The same site describes Neil Dawson as "New Zealand's premiere sculptural conjuror; an artist who sculpts sky, moulds light, lassoes planets, and builds stairways to heaven from neon and know-how. An artist whose fusion of Pop and Minimalist aesthetics have for two decades graced airspace around the globe. An artist who makes mind into matter and engineering into art. An imagineer, a mechanic of the marvellous, an artist who shakes you awake to the strangeness of seeing."

I like the way that it does appear to just hang in space. I also like that this angle includes two metal sculptures of a nikau palm (there are more in the general area), and further away (actually on the Sea to City Bridge) are six metal sculptures on the top of long poles.

Evidence of the rising sun is seen behind all this.