Scale of our War

The Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand has a permanent exhibit, Scale of Our War, that is almost worth going to New Zealand to see, and should certainly be on a must visit list if you happen to travel there. Weta Workshops, the folks who made all the props and special effects in the Lord of the Rings movies and other Peter Jackson productions, created a set of sculptures to mourn the disaster of the WWI battle of Gallipoli, Turkey, which was the seminal trigger for New Zealand independence. Weta created 2X lifesize versions of soldiers and nurses in the war that are hyperreal in their detail, from each hair on their arms, to flies on their frayed jackets, the 2X scale of threads in the cloth, and uncannily realistic flesh and faces, all at twice the size. You are looking up, in the embrace of these large beings, like a child in the arms of its parent. I’ve seen statues and art, ancient and modern, around the world, and no sculpture has been so emotionally potent as these. Worth going out of your way to see. — KK