1993 Navigating the Antipodes

Media: cast bronze on hardwood and painted wood, found cast bronze propeller.

Navigating the Antipodes, 1993 is a work rich in allusions. The simplified form of the mermaid’s head and torso is suggestive of Māori ancestor ‘post figures’, reminding us of the navigational skills of the Polynesians. As an apron she wears Able Tasman’s chart of New Zealand’s western shoreline. The mermaid has lowered a modern ship’s propeller into the water. On the horizon line of her upturned tail the skills of the navigator are used to line up the heavenly bodies. It tells a story about the movement and discovery by peoples both Māori and European.