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Three oversized patchwork metal spheres made from repurposed 44-gallon drums for the 2024–25 Sculpture in the Gardens exhibition.
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Patchwork of Possibilities – Auckland Botanic Gardens
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Approximate location · 37.010° S, 174.910° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Three oversized spheres, patchworked together out of old 44-gallon drums, sat in the Auckland Botanic Gardens through the summer of 2024 and 2025.
Patchwork of Possibilities is by the artist Metal Metcalfe, and the material is the argument. A 44-gallon drum is the most utilitarian object in rural New Zealand – fuel, water, feed, incinerator, raft – and cutting used ones into panels and reassembling them as globes turns industrial waste into something closer to a quilt. The exhibition's own description frames the work as an exploration of scale, humour and repurposed materials, which is a fair summary: the spheres are funny before they are anything else, and the joke survives close inspection because you can still see what the metal used to be.
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PRACTICAL
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WHAT TO EXPECT
Sculpture in the Gardens documents Metal Metcalfe’s three spheres as an exploration of scale, humour and repurposed materials. Contemporary reporting described the patchwork globes as among the exhibition’s large steel artworks.
ACCESS
Historical temporary-exhibition record; do not route visitors to Auckland Botanic Gardens expecting the installation to remain.
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