Raupo Rap

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."