This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
41.28264° S, 174.77917° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Nine giant kina against the seawall at Kumutoto, the largest weighing more than seven tonnes each.
Michel Tuffery made Ngā Kina in 2012, and the Wellington Sculpture Trust records the work as nine shells in two sizes, with the overall installation about 11.6 metres long and 3.2 metres high. Set against the waterfront's seawall, they read as though the harbour has deposited them there.
Kina – the New Zealand sea urchin – is a good subject for exactly that reason. It is an animal of the intertidal and shallow subtidal, found on rock walls and under ledges, and a wall is where you would actually look for one. The sculptures are placed the way the animal lives rather than displayed on a plinth.
The form rewards enlargement more than most. A kina shell is a near-perfect sphere covered in a regular pattern of tubercles where the spines attach, arranged in five-fold symmetry – a genuinely beautiful piece of natural geometry that is invisible at life size because the animal is small and covered in spines. Seven tonnes of it is impossible to overlook.
Kina is also a significant kai moana, gathered and eaten around the country, so the work sits at the intersection of natural history and food culture rather than being purely decorative.
The Wellington waterfront has become one of the most concentrated collections of public sculpture in New Zealand, and Ngā Kina is among the heaviest works on it.
The documentation is missing the fabric of it.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Wellington Sculpture Trust documents Michel Tuffery’s 2012 work as nine giant kina in two sizes; the larger shells weigh more than seven tonnes and the overall installation is approximately 11.6 metres long and 3.2 metres high.
ACCESS
Public waterfront artwork best approached on foot. The kina sit at the seawall and are partly surrounded by water at high tide; do not create a vehicle destination at the sculpture. Use normal central-Wellington parking or public transport.
