Other worlds has arrived in Tāmaki Makaurau – a thought-provoking, wondrous series of large-scale globes standing on tripod legs inspires us to see the world through different lenses.
Auckland Councillor, Angela Dalton says the globes provide a new experience of the Botanic Gardens which is a space much loved by Aucklanders and visitors.
“The scale is awe-inspiring. They look incredible on such a vast, expansive lawn. Close up, visitors will see some globes are very textural, others are smooth and detailed, and the new tripod stands give Other worlds a sci-fi feeling,” Councillor Dalton says.
The temporary outdoor exhibition aligns with the World Green Infrastructure Congress hosted this year in Tāmaki Makaurau from 3 to 5 September, and will be exhibited from 2 September to 14 October.
New Zealanders might have seen this artwork outside Te Papa Tongarewa between 2018 and 2020, courtesy of the Wellington Sculpture Trust’s Four Plinths commissions.
Created by Auckland-based artist, Ruth Watson, each of the globes in Other worlds depicts different types of mapping or data collection to present an alternative world. The grey globe is a seventeenth-century worldview of the earth without water, and the blue and beige globe depicts an early 1900s belief that Mars was home to a superior civilisation.
Instead of the conventional colouring of continents, the patterns on the black globe depict carbon sequestration data. Rather than a usual sphere, the white globe depicts European Space Agency gravitational field analysis.
Ruth Watson has a longstanding interest in maps and her art practice questions common western ideas about how places are represented and why.
“I was looking for globes that would be familiar in the sense that someone would look at them and know it was a representation of our Earth, but also different enough to indicate that it wasn’t the world as we usually see it,” Ruth says.
While the artwork was a commission for the Wellington Sculpture Trust, Ruth’s artwork appeals to and expresses ideas that anyone, anywhere can relate to, drawing on the familiar to express the unfamiliar.
Other worlds is exhibited by Auckland Council Public Art in conjunction with the Auckland Botanic Gardens.
