Balancing Act – Giant Pencils

Whanganui, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand

Public art

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Current

Checked by Project Big Things · Sep 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Three larger-than-life coloured pencils set into a concrete plinth beside the Whanganui River.

Private to your Passport.

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Balancing Act – Giant Pencils

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39.92392° S, 175.05177° E

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Three enormous coloured pencils stand in a concrete plinth beside the Whanganui River, and they are specifically Staedtler pencils.

Daniel Clifford made Balancing Act in 2010, taking his subject from the pencils he had used throughout his fine arts studies – so the work is a monument to the artist's own tools, which is a more personal starting point than public sculpture usually admits to. It won first place at the inaugural Sculpture Wanganui event that year and was installed on Somme Parade.

The inscriptions carry the argument. The pencils are marked in te reo Māori and English – kōrero o mua and tradition – drawing on the different ways history is communicated, spoken or written. That turns the piece from a joke about scale into something about record-keeping itself: a written implement inscribed with a word for oral tradition, on a river with a very long history of both.

Scale was central to it being chosen. The judge for Sculpture Whanganui noted the work stood out for several reasons, and the Coastal Arts Trail records that its size was decisive in its selection as a public landmark.

The river setting matters. The Whanganui is the awa that in 2017 became the first river in the world granted legal personhood, recognising the relationship between it and Whanganui iwi. A sculpture on Somme Parade about how history gets passed on is standing beside a river that carries a great deal of it.

The pencils have not been sharpened.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

The current Coastal Arts Trail documents Daniel Clifford’s 2010 Balancing Act as three larger-than-life pencils on Somme Parade and notes that its scale was central to its selection as a public landmark.

ACCESS

Balancing Act, Daniel Clifford’s three giant pencils, stands beside the Whanganui River on Somme Parade. Coastal Arts Trail’s current public-art listing links its Get Directions control directly to -39.9239195, 175.0517651, so production now uses that as the exact map-checked sculpture point. The artwork is beside the road/riverfront rather than a vehicle-parking destination. Use lawful nearby street parking and approach on foot; a preferred parking coordinate remains to be independently verified.

COMMUNITY

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WHAT'S NEXT

Find another Big Thing nearby

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✓ Recommended arrival recorded

TRANSPARENCY

Sources & research

Coastal Arts Trail – Balancing Act

Coastal Arts Trail · recorded 2026-08-23

Current regional art trail describes three larger-than-life pencils and Somme Parade location.

Tourism

Coastal Arts Trail – Balancing Act directions

Coastal Arts Trail · recorded 2026-09-11

Current public-art listing confirms Balancing Act on Somme Parade; its Get Directions link resolves directly to -39.92391950928176, 175.05176514484407.

Official

What we're still checking

Open-licence image search completed 24 August 2026. No defensible reusable image with file-level commercial-use provenance was verified in the completed Commons, government/open-licence and archival/open-collection sweep.

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