This exhibition is completely separate to Peter Jackson's Great War exhibition. "Gallipoli: The scale of our war" has been created by Te Papa curatorial staff working closely with Weta Workshop. The top secret creative treatment was revealed only ten days ago. As always, click on each image to enlarge
From the Te Papa website: Eight New Zealanders and their stories are brought to life on a monumental scale. The figures of seven soldiers and a nurse are frozen in a moment in time, at 2.4 times human scale.
Exhibition Creative Director and founder of Weta Workshop Richard Taylor says he and his team were determined to create something unique to commemorate Gallipoli through their collaboration with Te Papa.
“In collaboration with a large number of amazing Wellington companies we have worked together with the team at Te Papa, to commemorate the people involved in this war in a way that will hopefully create a heighted awareness and leave a lasting and impactful memory of this most important of events in New Zealand’s history.” Weta Workshop spent more than 24,000 hours creating all eight figures, along with the associated exhibition elements of their lives and stories, including countless hours researching their rich histories.
Lead curator Kirstie Ross of Te Papa says the exhibition challenges certain myths around the eight month Gallipoli campaign.
“Our job as historians and curators is to uncover the human stories, and not shy away from the tough realities.”
Exhibition Historical Director Dr Christopher Pugsley believes the exhibition will help shape people’s views on the Gallipoli campaign.
We waited approximately 30 minutes as the number of visitors is limited to about 200 at any one time.
The realism of the figures and their uniforms and equipment is absolutely extraordinary. Every detail of the their complexion is captured exactly.
“This exhibition will determine how New Zealanders remember the Gallipoli campaign for the 21st century.”
In addition to the monumental figures, cutting edge technology has been used to create other visitor experiences including 3-D maps and projections, miniatures, models, dioramas, and a range of interactive experiences."
This model of Quinns Post is to about 30mm figure height
Check out the flies on the food and on his hand
This statistic was fairly sobering
Here are some screen shots from one of the videos at the Te Papa website showing the figures under construction
Each individual hair was stitched into place
This image shows the Weta Workshop staff member whose face became the nurse
Auditions were held to find people who most closely resembled the historical characters
What do you think the skills required to model in 2.4:1 scale?
There was of course a lot more to see and hear, these photos are just a taste. The exhibition will run for four years so if you visit Down Under be sure to come and see it.
Thanks for looking in
James
