The Wellington Sculpture Trust came into being with the creation of of Albatross, under the inspiration of Dr Ian Prior and Henry Lang. The sculpture itself started life as an idea for three abstract shapes interacting with themselves and their intermingling spaces. The water was always a part of it, evoking feelings of rocks and the sea. The name came suddenly in a moment of inspiration!
''I have always been fascinated by the Albatross, its size, its power and its awesome grace. My sculpture is large and white and of the sea. There is a realistic albatross there too, as I realised when the sculpture was being built. I now think of it as a lament for the albatrosses as they disappear from this planet."
Tanya Ashken
Hone Tuwhare wrote a poem in honour of the occasion:
Day and night endlessly you have flown
Effortless of wing over chest expanding
Oceans far from land. Do you switch on
An automatic pilot, close your eyes
In sleep, Toroa?
On your way to your homeground at Otako heads
You tried to rest briefly on the Wai-te-mata
But was shot at by ignorant people. Crippled.
You find a resting place at Whanganui
A Toroa; found space at last to recompose
Yourself.
Now, without skin and flesh to hold you together
The division of your aerodynamic parts lie
Whitening, licked clean by sun and air and water.
Children will discover narrow corridors of
Airness between, the suddenness of bulk;
Naked, laugh in the gush and ripple of your
Fountain
You are not alone, Toroa. A taniwha once tried to break
Out of the harbour for the open sea. He failed
He is lonely
From the top of the mountain close
By he calls you: Welcome home, traveller
Haire Mai
Your head tilts, your eyes open to the world.
From Toroa, 1999 Steele Roberts, Albatross page 85.
