On the Viaduct's pedestrian boulevard sits a huge stainless steel cargo hook, resting on four granite pillars. The sculpture principally honours the migrants who came to Auckland, with the names of their ships sandblasted around the base of each column. With many layers of meaning to *Raupo Rap*, the hook also refers to the tool used by dockside workers to load and unload ships.



The hook curves around in a gesture of welcome and protection, or, seen as a fish hook it is symbolic of people working to feed their families. Sandblasted into the central column is the name Rangitāne, the passenger liner that sailed from Southampton in the United Kingdom to Auckland during the mid-20th century. It brought thousands of migrants to New Zealand, including the artist's father in 1939, who worked on the docks.



The names sandblasted on the smaller columns - Tofua, Matua and Moana Roa - are the ships that sailed the routes to the Cook Islands, Samoa and Fiji, carrying freight, fresh produce and people. The form of the raupō reed references the grooves on a classical column and imported European culture. It also refers to the ecology of the area and the wetlands that once thrived there, before being drained and reclaimed.





"As a five-year-old staring into the hallway cupboard at the bale-hook, it looked asleep, maybe dreaming," wrote artist Denis O’Connor in 2005. "I knew it travelled inside my father's bag with him each day, I knew it was at work on the wharves. I wasn't to know that it would have a role to play in my dreaming. Over the years I associated the bale-hook with ships, warehouses and import and export freight. I linked it to the big community of men who worked in the bowels of the ships, on the lorries, in the railway yards and produce markets, the Wool Stores in Parnell and Hellaby's Meat Refrigeration Plant on Quay Street. I heard the lovely vowel sounds of these vessels' names - Mofua, Matua, Moana Roa - repeated in our family home. I had Samoan schoolmates who had migrated to New Zealand on these Pacific traders. On another roll-call, Rangitāne and Wanganella, ships that made the six-week trip to Auckland from Britain and Ireland, boats my clan had emigrated on. To walk through this work is a ritual that honours a community of workers, tradespeople, migrants, their families and descendants."

Raupo Rap

A mosaic of coloured glass and ceramic tiles, this artwork was commissioned by BJ Ball for its new building in central Auckland in the late 1950s. The mural is modernist in style and adds to the design of the building.

BJ Ball is a major distributor of paper and packaging in the Australasian and Pacific regions, and the mural helped to advertise this. Artist Milan Mrkusich's mostly geometric, abstract design illustrates the process of producing paper - from the raw material of trees represented on the left side to the stack of paper on the other side of the artwork.

This mural is one of the few prominent public artworks by artist Milan Mrkusich. Well-known for his abstract works emphasising colour, design and experimentation, Mrkusich has often explored the structural and architectural nature of painting in his practice.

Untitled

Nature, science and art combine to create this dancing kinetic sculpture by Phil Price. The large, wind-activated artwork is made up of 16 pod-like discs, which move on their own and together. Even in a gentle breeze *Cytoplasm* is constantly in motion, much like the work’s namesake: cytoplasm is the gel-like substance within living cells that carries out life's processes and gives cells their pod-like form. Taking centre stage on the waterfront at Viaduct Harbour, this artwork is perfectly positioned for people to interact and admire; the silver pods even light up at night.

Price draws much of his inspiration from the physical world. Like a flower is perfectly designed by Mother Nature, the artist’s sculptures are also highly engineered, their organic shapes re-imaginings of the natural world. Wind-activated sculpture has been his focus since the early 2000s and Price is now regarded as a leader in the art form.

*Cytoplasm* was originally exhibited in 2003 at Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island. It was purchased by the Auckland City Sculpture Trust, gifted to Auckland City and installed in Waitematā Plaza in December 2004.

Cytoplasm

This rolling line of white seating meanders along the ground and through space in Waitematā Plaza. Its basic form is a park bench; there's a seat to sit on and a back to lean against. But unlike most conventional park benches, this line of seating stretches into multiple sections, the line rising and falling with high arches and sharp turns. The curved and unconventional design offers a place to relax, where viewers can also admire the ribbon-like shape as it makes its way along the plaza. At night, the artwork is lit by LED lights, transforming the work with a soft glow.

*Long Modified Bench Waitematā Green* was originally one of three temporary sculpture projects commissioned to celebrate the reopening of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2011. By Danish artist Jeppe Hein, the work was sponsored by the Edmiston Trust and unveiled on the gallery’s L-shaped Edmiston Sculpture Terrace, then relocated in August 2015 to its current location.

Benches have featured in Hein's work since 2000, becoming more complex over time, and this the first work to utilise light.

When the work was unveiled at the reopening of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, curator Natasha Conland noted how Hein’s benches, "invite curiosity and a desire for exploration. But the principles of the common bench remain — they are go-betweens in spaces of leisure and work, or urban and park-side settings."

Denis O'Connor

Raupo Rap

"This large sculpture honours migrants who came to New Zealand and people working to feed their families."

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