Zealandia makes her mark: Gill Gatfield in Venice

Less than an hour before the official opening of Time, Space, Existence and La Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2018, the air in the Giardini was filled with the sound of saws, hammers and agitated voices in a myriad of languages.

Shipping delays, customs hold ups, torrential rain and voracious mosquitos all conspired to make the installation of large sculptures and site-specific projects by sculptors and architects from around the globe a high tension drama right down to the wire.

However, when the sun came out, the Prosecco corks started popping, the mood was instantly celebratory in the easternmost leafy quarter of Venice. Hundreds of architects, curators and media attended the opening night in the gardens, accompanied by a flock of curious locals keen to partake in the spectacle and engage with the works.

Despite having travelled the furthest – 42,000km to be exact – and being subject to its own installation theatrics, Zealandia had staked an early claim to Venice. In the cool of the pines of Giardino della Marinareassa, where the ships built in the adjacent Arsenale once set sail for the Mediterranean and the world beyond, Zealandia stands with her arms extended skyward, a personification of free space – the overarching theme of the 2018 Venice Biennale.

Formed from a precious stone quarried in New Zealand’s South Island, and mounted on a base of Italian granite, Zealandia combines the geological history of two continents. These two ancient stones were created under distinctly different conditions: one the result of colliding continental plates, the other cooled volcanic rock. Pairing these two expressive materials connects origin and destination on a subterranean level.

Zealandia combines geometry with the qualities of classical statuary. Standing 2.3m tall, the perfectly proportioned X-figure is Goddess-like, both graceful and powerful. The deeply veined stone creates a marbled effect reminiscent of drapery in classical sculpture, especially of the Italian baroque, and the patterns snake up the sculpture like muscles or skin, simultaneously primitive and futuristic.

The sculpture’s elegant X form re-writes the ‘perfect proportions’ of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (circa 1510), the Renaissance ideal immortalised on the one Euro coin. When the X outline replicates itself in shadow on the ground, it creates XX - the female genetic code. In this way, amid global movements demanding gender equality, respect and inclusion for all, Zealandia invites a shift in perception. Standing poised and polished looking out to sea, she is perhaps a modern day Victory of Samothrace, a Goddess messenger for a new age.

INTERVIEW Listen to Gill Gatfield discuss the project with Lynn Freeman on Radio New Zealand – aired on Sunday 27 May: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/20...