Wild Dunedin community sculpture event

To celebrate Earth Day and to open the New Zealand Festival of Nature Philippa and I were commissioned to work with Wild Dunedin community volunteers to make a land art sculpture. We chose St Kilda Beach as a location and planned to use natural materials found at the site that would return to the sea on the incoming tide.

We marked out the shape of a 25 metre circle on the sand below the high tide line and cordoned it off with ropes. Into this we all dragged and arranged the materials without making footprints on the beach around it, by walking in the wet sand as the tide receded.

The day was cold, windy and intermittently stormy but everyone put their heart and soul into collecting mostly kelp and driftwood. Over three hours of very hard work we completed the installation with some people creating intricate personal artworks within the circle.

The whole event was livestreamed with cutaways to interviews, and videos about our art practice. A time lapse and aerial drone footage shot by Graham MacArthur document the inspiring outcome, which everyone agreed was a big success.

Earth Day community sculpture washed away by the tide