REFLECT COLLATERAL DAMAGE
The sculpture designed to support a World War II mine
Installed on New Plymouth's Coastal Walkway
by Dale Copeland, 2015
| I was commissioned by the Art in Public Places group to design a structure
to display a naval mine which washed onto the rocks in
New Plymouth in 1943, the year I was born. I was pleased, and honoured, to be asked and designed this so passersby would see themselves reflected in the shiny stainless steel collar and realise that the mealy-mouthed term 'collateral damage' means people just like them. Nice ordinary people out for a walk, enjoying being alive, suddenly killed or maimed as a byproduct of someone else's war. I was delighted that PACE Engineering in New Plymouth were able to make my sculpture exactly the way I'd hoped. I regard this project as a high point in my life as well as my career. I've put together a book New Plymouth's Mine with the history of the mine. (It's with my books on www.dalecopeland.co.nz/Press/press.htm) It records the entire history, from memoirs kept by members of the New Plymouth's Bomb Disposal Squad right up to the modern day efforts needed to turn an about-to-be-junked artefact into a public piece of art. |
Dale's studio can be found at Puniho,
Surf Highway, Coastal Taranaki, New Zealand
More of her artwork, and the books she makes, can be found on her site at dalecopeland.co.nz.
email Dale at dale@tart.co.nz
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Image © Dale Copeland