Big Moas – Te Poi

That siting is not incidental. Moa were the largest birds New Zealand ever had, the biggest species standing well over three metres, and they were hunted to extinction within a couple of centuries of human arrival. Putting three life-scale concrete moa inside a room, rather than out on the highway with the cow, gives them a completely different presence: you are enclosed with them, at their scale, in a space they fill.

It is also a genuinely odd thing to walk into if you have stopped for a beer and were expecting a country pub.

The group makes the Te Poi collection considerably stranger than its roadside frontage suggests. From State Highway 29 it looks like a pub with a big cow. Inside, there is an extinct megafaunal bird in triplicate.

NZ Herald and specialist documentation both identify the three sculptures. Because they sit indoors in a licensed venue, this record treats them as access-restricted rather than a roadside stop – you need the bar to be open.

The installation date and a measured size remain blank.